


Going Down Together

by marleymars



Series: Attachment Theory [8]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Butt Sex, Crime stuff, Emotions, I'm Sorry, M/M, Tension, armin does what he wants, author might be delirious, idek what to tag, lawyering, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-08
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:51:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1075111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marleymars/pseuds/marleymars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Armin would do anything for Irwin, make any sacrifice to stay by his side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey kids, this one took a long time because the place I where was working went out of business and the last few weeks they had me there basically as much as they were legally allowed to make me work. It was frickin exhausting, and it gave me a whole new appreciation for what a bunch of dickbags human beings can be when they’re shopping. I am never working in customer service again, I swear. I’d rather dig a hole straight to hell and just turn myself over to Satan, because it would be preferable to dealing with a constant litany of stupid, selfish assholes all day long. *frustrated screaming in the dark* 
> 
> Anyway. I feel like a lot of this is really cheesy, but whatever. Enjoy motherfrickers ilu. My only motivation for even attempting to continue this series was you sweet little shits and all your nice words to me.

There was a strange look on Armin’s face when Irwin found him sitting in the living room—it was a look that told him something was amiss, and instantly set him on edge. When the blond heard him approaching he got to his feet, smoothing his shirt as he looked the older man in the eye, but he appeared oddly…guilty?

“What is it?” Irwin asked, ignoring the creeping tendrils of concern that were lacing through his chest.

Armin maintained eye contact for a few seconds, then dropped his gaze, hands clasped behind his back in a posture of contrition as he said, “You know that big vase in the reading room? The one by the window?”

“Yes?” Irwin said cautiously.

“Well…It’s not by the window anymore,” he looked back up, remorse now the predominant emotion on his face, “I…I knocked it over. It’s totally smashed. I’m really sorry, Irwin. I know it was expensive because it didn’t say ‘made in China’ anywhere on it, but I promise I’ll make it up to you.”

For a few long seconds Irwin could only stare at him, and then he raised a hand to thoughtfully stroke his chin as he said, “It _was_ rather expensive. And heavy. How did you manage to knock it over?”

“I don’t even know,” Armin sighed, shoulders drooping as he once again shamefully turned his eyes to the floor. “I just managed to bump into it at the exact right angle to send it toppling onto the floor,” he explained, gesturing with an elbow to demonstrate. “I don’t know how I’m so good at handling animals, but I still somehow manage to break everything within a ten foot radius of my body.”

The older man placed his hands on Armin’s shoulders, and the grimacing boy slowly turned his face up, then with obvious surprise as he saw that Irwin was smiling. “Armin, my mother bought me that hideous, overpriced piece of pottery and insisted I display it in my home. It’s been an eyesore to me for years—why do you think I barely ever read in my own reading room?”

Several emotions flickered across the younger man’s face—disbelief, solace, then annoyance. “You could have said something right away!” he said, pushing Irwin's hands off of his shoulders in a show of irritation. “I’ve been sitting around for three hours feeling horrible about breaking your ugly vase, and you don’t even care. Don’t laugh at me, Irwin! I’m glad I broke it, so there!”

Chuckling softly, Irwin said, “I’m glad you broke it, too. Though I can only imagine what mother will give me to replace it.” The last words were said with a shudder—the woman really did have a taste for the gaudy.

Finally Armin smiled, pushing at his boyfriend’s chest playfully as he said, “I hope it’s a bronze statue of a giant dick, so when you’re mean to me you can use it to go fuck yourself.”

It wasn’t often that Irwin laughed out loud, but he did at that, once more taking Armin by surprise, but only for a moment. The blond joined in, allowing himself to be pulled into an embrace by the former marine as he broke down into a fit of giggles. “I’m sorry for teasing you,” Irwin murmured into his hair once his mirth subsided. Armin pulled back to grin up at him, and he added, “I couldn’t help it, though. You’re very cute when you’re guilt-ridden.”

“Ugh, you moment-ruiner,” Armin grumbled with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. He tried to slip away but Irwin held onto him. “Let go of me. I’m gonna go break more of your stuff.” Rather than obey, Irwin leaned down to kiss him, but he was thwarted by a pair of hands pushing his face away. “Stop!” Armin laughed, squirming in the older man’s grasp. “Oh my God, no,” he gasped when he felt Irwin’s fingers on his waist, “If you tickle me I’ll never have sex with you again, I swear to—,” his threat ended in a shriek. Honestly, Irwin hadn’t been planning on tickling the blond, but once it was said, he felt he didn’t have a choice.

Normally Armin loved having Irwin’s hands on his waist. He loved being held there, or having the older man’s hands rubbing his sides or back or stomach. Irwin had noted on several occasions that the blond was sensitive, but it had never occurred to him that he could elicit such a reaction by teasing his fingertips against the silky smooth skin.

“ _You bastard! I’ll kill you!_ ”the blond squealed at the same time that all the strength seemed to leave his body. Irwin had to catch him as he collapsed, but the younger man quickly regained his legs and scrambled free. He moved breathlessly away from the older man, holding his arms out to keep him at bay. “Oh my gosh. Don’t do that again,” he panted, eyes wide, hair mussed, face delectably red. “You’re such a jerk. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Irwin asked. He hadn’t been aware that he was giving the blond any sort of look.

“Like you wanna eat me alive,” Armin huffed.

“Oh?” Irwin took a step toward him, “And what about you?” Armin’s expression was heated and longing, furious but wanting. He made no move to back away when Irwin reached up to cup his face, nor when the older man bent down to capture his pretty pink lips. The kiss was slow, warm; their lips fit together so well, no matter the angle. They pulled back, shifted, came together again, then Armin opened his mouth, slipped his tongue along the seam of Irwin’s lips until the older man let him in.

“Greedy,” he murmured as the blond licked eagerly into his mouth.

“It’s your fault,” Armin whispered back, “Tickling makes me horny. That’s why I hate it so much. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have one of your friends tickle you at a sleepover and then have to go beat off because you’re all horned out?”

“No. Can’t say that I do.” Irwin smiled and stroked the blond’s throat with his knuckles.

“Well, you’re gonna.” He felt hands on his waist, felt fingers through the fabric of his shirt, but they moved slowly, dragging down his sides, then across his stomach and up his chest. Irwin wasn’t given to being ticklish, but the sensation of Armin’s nails against his skin through his shirt were sharp, tingling, and all quickly traveled down below his waistband. He dragged them back down, traveling over hardened abs until they reached the older man’s belt. The blond stopped there, then tilted his head back, meeting the ravenous gaze that was waiting for him. “Can you think of anywhere else you’d like to be tickled?” he asked softly.

Before Irwin could respond, he was spinning away, heading for the hallway that lead toward the master bedroom. The older man was left with little recourse but to follow. He reached the room just as Armin was pulling his shirt up over his head. When he heard the door being shut behind him, he turned and flashed a sly little smile over his shoulder. How he could do things like that—smiling the way he did, touching and teasing, slowly sliding out of his jeans and climbing up onto the bed—and not think he was as gorgeous as he was?

“Well?” he asked as he sat on the edge of the bed, “Don’t keep me waiting, Irwin.” Such a defiant little thing. Irwin never wanted that to end—for Armin to lose that streak of willfulness, for him to stop being so cunning. Those were his most endearing qualities; his mind was always working, always several steps ahead. Irwin loved the way he toyed with him. It drove him wild.

Three strides was all it took for him to cross the room. When he reached the edge of the bed Armin simply looked up at him, expression expectant. Within about four seconds Irwin realized what he was waiting for, and reached up to begin undoing his belt. The blond watched him with the faintest smile; Irwin wasn’t at all surprised when he placed a hand on the front of his work slacks, tracing his fingers along the outline of his long-since hardened cock. Once his belt was slackened and his pants undone, the younger man leaned forward and nuzzled him through his underwear as Irwin busied himself with unbuttoning his shirt.

“I’m gonna ride your cock tonight,” the blond announced, murmuring against the length and sending shivers up the older man’s spine.

“Is that so?” Armin only hummed in response, then gripped the waistband of Irwin’s underwear and pulled them downward, along with his slacks, piling them loosely around his feet. Irwin sucked in a breath as the blond took him into his mouth—there was no teasing, astonishingly. He pulled the cock in, back to his throat and sucked without moving, sliding his tongue along the bottom of the shaft several times before pulling off.

“I’m gonna ride you nice and slow,” he said as Irwin threw his shirt aside, “Until you can’t take it anymore.” He pressed a kiss to the head of the older man’s cock, and then he was scooting backward, leaving room for Irwin to follow. The CEO obliged, climbing up onto the mattress and stretching out toward the center. Almost immediately, Armin was straddling him, leaning down to press a kiss to his lips as his hand slid underneath the pillow to retrieve a bottle of lube. Presumably he’d hidden it there earlier—somehow Irwin had the feeling that he’d already planned much of this in advance.

“You didn’t break that vase on purpose so you’d have an excuse to ‘make it up to me,’ did you, Armin?” he asked, settling his hands on the blond’s hips as he unscrewed the top from the little bottle.

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” the younger man said rather passively. Irwin arched an eyebrow at this evasive answer, and he smirked, “No, I didn’t, alright? But when life gives you lemons…” He shrugged, snatching his hands away when the older man reached for the bottle of lubrication. “Uh-uh.” He raised up on his knees, squirting the clear, slick liquid onto his own fingers. With his eyes latched onto Irwin’s, he leaned forward on his other hand as he reached behind himself. The angle must have been awkward, but he arched his back and he must have been sliding his fingers against himself because those pretty blue eyes fluttered shut and he released the softest moan.

“You have no shame at all,” Irwin said, smoothing his hands down the blond’s shoulders and receiving a slightly louder moan in response. He dropped his head down onto Irwin’s chest, the fingers on his free hand gripping the bedspread as his other fingers slipped inside. From the older man’s perspective, the sight was absolutely intoxicating. His cock was throbbing with need, and it was all he could do not to grab those hips and grind up into them. This was Armin’s treat for him, though, and he wasn’t going to try to wrest away control of the situation.

Well, perhaps one small alteration would be acceptable. “Armin,” he said, and the blond raised his head just a little. When Irwin stroked his face he smiled, and when the older man gently pushed his fore and middle finger into the blond’s mouth he latched onto them and began sucking eagerly. Completely, utterly shameless—that’s what Armin was, and Irwin wouldn’t have it any other way. Every swipe of his tongue along the older man’s fingers made his cock twitch, and every roll of his hips, every moan filled him with the need to pound into the tight heat of his ass.

All in good time. Armin sat up, drawing Irwin’s fingers out of his mouth and shuddering as he removed his own fingers from himself. He rolled his shoulder and flexed his hand as if the strain had hurt him, but then that crafty look was back. “Your fingers feel so much better than mine do,” he said, not teasing, just stating fact. “Do you want me to suck your cock some more, Irwin?” _Now_ he was teasing.

“Yes,” the older man admitted, unsure if he would be accommodated or not. Apparently, Armin was in a giving mood, because he slid down until his face was level with Irwin’s cock. For someone who worked largely with his hands, they were oddly free of callouses, soft, warm, lissome. Those quick little hands fluttered over his cock, still keeping with Armin’s tickling game. His touch sent pleasant little shocks and thrills through his length and up into his stomach, tightening his abdomen and making him clench his jaw.

Knowing that Irwin was watching him, Armin took his time. He kissed his way up the underside of the older man’s reddened, straining member. His kisses were little sparks of flame, and his tongue was molten, wet, and teasing. He teased it under the ridge of the dripping head, fingers still ghosting up and down the shaft. Irwin didn’t rush him, didn’t urge him to go faster. Letting Armin do as he pleased, that was enough for him—it was more exciting that way, more satisfying than trying to direct or force him.

When Armin finally took him into his mouth, he loosed an audible, relieved sort of groan. His mouth was perfect; hot, wet, and his tongue slid and writhed just right against the length of him. He sucked at the head, pressing the tip of his tongue into the cleft and pulling off again. “Armin,” he growled. It seemed he wasn’t finished yet with his mischievous little game—he suctioned his mouth to the underside of Irwin’s cock, dragging his lips down to the base before trailing his tongue down to his balls.

“Does that feel good?” he murmured, lips and breath ghosting softly against the sensitive flesh. “Does it make you want me even more?” Irwin didn’t answer verbally—he just stared, eyes hot, and Armin gave him one of his wily little smiles as he pushed himself back up onto his knees. Stretching, catlike, he leaned forward over the older man’s body and kissed him on the jaw. “I want _you_ ,” he whispered. There was more sincerity than lasciviousness in his tone, honesty in his eyes. A surging warmth collected somewhere in Irwin’s chest, bound in a neat little knot as he watched the blond straddle him again.

Armin sat up, coating his palm with lubrication as he rose up on his knees. He wrapped his fingers around Irwin’s cock once more, slicking it completely before leaning forward again and angling the length toward his entrance. Irwin didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he felt the tip of his cock pressing into that perfectly tight ring of muscle. With an entirely involuntary groan, he released it, reveling in the way the taut flesh seemed to eagerly stretch accept him. Armin made his own soft noise, a little sigh, and then his eyes fluttered shut and he bit his lip as he sank down, taking Irwin all the way in.

“You’re incredible,” the older man said as Armin took a moment to adjust, shifting until he was seated comfortably.

“I haven’t even started yet,” he breathed with a smirk. Irwin had to beg to differ. Over the years, he hadn’t met many men who could take the full length of him. He harbored no illusions about his size, the discomfort and even pain that it could cause. But if it bothered Armin at all he didn’t show it—to the contrary, he seemed to either not mind or even outright enjoy any hurt inflicted during their lovemaking. When he began to move, Irwin could feel how deeply he was seated, and couldn’t imagine how someone with such a small stature could handle his length. All he could think was that he was glad for it, grateful simply to have Armin as his lover.

“Have I ever mentioned how beautiful you are?” Irwin asked, voice strained. The blond leaned forward, bracing his palms against the older man’s stomach as he rolled his hips up. He opened his eyes briefly, the bright blue darkened with desire and need, among other things.

“Once or twice,” he said, jaw dropping slightly as he pushed himself up onto his knees, and slowly sank back down. He was so hot inside, tight like a vice and burning. The pleasure was sharp and all-encompassing, and he was wet from the lubrication and the precum he was currently seeping into Armin’s body.

For a minute or so he just watched, letting Armin control their pleasure as the blond rose and fell, taking him in and then pulling back up, then repeating. At first he leaned on his hands, then he straightened, relying on his hips and legs for momentum. Irwin reached up and placed his hands on the younger man’s thighs, feeling the muscles there, the way they strained and tightened. He smoothed the heated flesh, sliding his palms up to the crux of Armin’s legs, but when he reached for the blond’s cock he was thwarted.

“No,” Armin gasped, grabbing his wrist and pushing it down to the mattress. “No, I want to—,” his voice caught as he made a sharp noise of pleasure, then he swallowed hard and continued, “I want to come just from your…your cock.”

“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” Irwin said, turning his hand so that he could grip Armin’s fingers.

“Oh, shut up,” the blond huffed, but the older man made him eat those words when he thrust up, derailing Armin’s rhythm and making him cry out again. “Yeah. More of that,” he gasped, “It feels so good when you’re under me.” Irwin had to agree. Feeling Armin’s weight on his hips, the way he moved, the way his legs quivered; the older man loved watching him, seeing him in ecstasy from riding his dick. He ran his hands up and down the blond’s thighs, and up his hips to his waist. He shifted beneath the younger man, pulling his legs up somewhat to help support him. With a moan Armin leaned back, bracing a hand just above Irwin’s knee, while the other reached up and fisted into his own hair.

“Armin,” he groaned, feeling the blond’s silky heat tightening around him, and he jerked up. “You’re incredible,” he groaned again. It was the truth—Armin could self-deprecate all he liked, joke about how he was short and scrawny, but he was perfect.

“Oh God, Irwin I—aghhh!” he dropped the hand that had been in his hair, sagging forward and slowly lifting his hips. The older man noticed then that he was straining, that his legs were shaking. “I’m—I can’t, I’m—,” He didn’t need to finish. Irwin pushed up, sitting with Armin in his lap. In one fluid motion he wrapped his arms around the blond and rolled him quickly onto his back. He heard Armin’s sigh, felt his arms slip behind his neck as he positioned himself firmly between a pair of tired legs.  “Don’t hold back,” the blond ordered, and Irwin kissed his reddened lips.

“So bossy,” he murmured. “I like it when you’re bossy.” That was almost always, of course, except for when Armin was trying to trick or tease him, but he loved that too. He began to move, slowly at first, just grinding himself into the blond and eliciting sweet, joyful noises from him.

“Yes! Oh, I—nnnghh! Please!” He was shameless, so demanding, so honest. He began to pump faster, plunging again and again into Armin’s body, holding nothing back just as he’d been told. The bed began to rattle, and they were both shouting, both needing—he could tell Armin was close by the way he was crazily rocking his hips and digging his nails into the back of Irwin’s neck. The older man buried his face into a soft, flushed throat. This was bliss; this was all that he needed.

Armin’s name was on his lips when he came. He felt the younger man go rigid barely a second before he lost himself, spilling his essence into the willing body beneath him. The pleasure roiled through his stomach, up his spine and poured through his veins. He felt hot, replete and sated, perfectly fulfilled as he tried to catch his breath, propped up on his elbows over the panting man beneath him.

“That was…,” Armin swallowed hard, “Jesus. Oh, get off me, it’s too hot.” With a soft chuckle, Irwin did as he was told, pulling out and rolling to the side so he could watch the blond recover. He was panting, his chest heaving and splattered with the pearly white droplets of his own pleasure. “Ew,” he whined, smiling in spite of the fact that he was covered and filled with cum. “Ugh. I need…I’m gonna go…shower.” Irwin caught him before he could go far, taking hold of his chin and turning his face toward his own. He kissed the blond, slipping his tongue in deep and giving his lips a slow, gentle suck. Armin pushed him back, blushing and biting his lip. “Don’t be cute,” he said softly.

Then he slipped away, crossing the room on slightly wobbly legs, and a moment later Irwin heard the shower come on. It didn’t take Armin very long to clean up. Irwin considered joining him, but was too comfortable to move. For the moment he was simply content to wait for Armin’s return, and it was only a few minutes later that the shower turned off, and then the blond emerged looking fresh and damp, blond hair dark with moisture. He climbed back into bed, wincing as he put pressure on his wrist as he dropped down next to the former marine.

“What’s wrong?” Irwin asked as he settled into the space beside him. Armin shifted onto his back and held up his left hand.

“Just a little carpal tunnel,” he said as nonchalantly as he could manage as he rotated his wrist. Irwin arched an eyebrow at him and he shrugged, “I’m a groomer. It’s rough, man.”

“In your left hand, though?” the older man mused, reaching for the culprit.

“Yeah. It’s weird, right? My right hand I use for trimming and cutting nails, but I use my left hand to like, hold onto dogs, like scruff them, or hold their heads still, or their legs. Y’know, whatever. Like, my right hand is for finesse, and my left hand is the muscle.” Irwin could only laugh at this assessment as he began kneading his fingers into the aggrieved limb. For a moment Armin watched these ministrations, grimacing as his joints cracked. “Ow!” he said, but made no move to pull away. Instead, he leaned in closer, huddling skin to skin with the older man and resting his head against his shoulder. A minute or two passed, and then he said, “You know what’s funny.”

“What?” Irwin asked.

“How sweet you are to me,” he answered, smiling softly.

“That’s funny?” the older man asked with an answering smirk.

“Well, everyone one else treats you like you’re this scary bastard. And I see you with other people, and that’s how you act; like you wouldn’t hesitate to just ruin somebody, and like you don’t give a fuck. But then you turn around and you’re the sweetest guy to me, and you like it even when I mess with you.”

“Trust me,” Irwin said a touchy dryly, “If anyone else spoke to me the way that you do then they’d live to regret it.”

“Does that mean I’m special?” Armin asked with that smile he wore when he was teasing.

“I wouldn’t treat anyone else this way,” Irwin answered as he gently pressed his fingers into the blond’s wrist. There were so many times when Armin had helped to soothe away his pains that Irwin felt this was the least he could do. He worked his hands down to the elbow, then back up to his palm and began massaging his knuckles. “Any better?” he asked after a few minutes, turning to look at the younger man only to find that he was being watched rather intently. “What?” Armin’s gaze was fixed and attentive, warm and soft, but longing. “What is it?” he asked again when he got no response.

As if being snapped out of a trance Armin opened his mouth, closed it quickly, then opened it again. “Nothing,” he said, summoning a smile, “I’m just happy.”

“Oh?” Irwin said. He gave the younger man’s hand a squeeze, then pulled it down to his mouth and kissed his palm.

“Mm-hmm,” Armin turned toward him as his hand was released and wrapped the freed arm around Irwin’s neck. “You make me happy.” Something pulsed in his chest, something elated, and he rolled to meet the younger man, looping his arms around him and hugging him tight.

“I’m glad,” he murmured. He wanted Armin to be happy, to feel safe and content with him and because of him. “And I feel the same.” He pulled the blanket up around them, and reached over to switch off the light. Armin was asleep soon enough, after a few more murmured sentiments, but for a while Irwin stayed awake. He was happy too, he realized. It had been quite a while since he’d been able to say that definitively, so long that he couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d felt that way. He stroked a hand through still slightly damp hair, and pressed a kiss to the younger man’s forehead. Yes. This was who he wanted. This was where he wanted to be. He was happy.

X

“Hey, Irwin?” Armin woke the next morning sore in all the right places. He enjoyed it, in all honesty; it was a reminder of the fact that he and Irwin had been together. A delicious, achy reminder.

The older man looked up from his cup of coffee—he was already dressed and ready for work at six in the morning, which caused Armin an entirely different kind of pain—and gave the blond an inquisitive look. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Armin yawned, “I just wanted to ask you if it’s okay if my friends come over tonight.”

“Here?” Irwin said, blinking as though surprised by the request.

“Yeah. There’s some sports game on and I told Eren about your big screen and he’s sort of been drooling about it. So is it okay if they come over and watch it?” He had told his friends that it probably wouldn’t be a problem. As far as Irwin was usually concerned, he could do as he pleased.

“A ‘sports game?’” the older man said with an amused glint in his eye, “What kind of ‘sports game?’”

“I dunno,” Armin huffed, crossing the dining room and plopping down into a high-backed chair next to his boyfriend. “That’s why I called it a ‘sports game.’”

“Well,” Irwin said, pausing to take a sip of his coffee, “Considering the time of year, it’s probably football.”

“I don’t really care,” Armin replied with a roll of his eyes, reaching out and swiping a piece of toast off of Irwin’s plate in retaliation to his teasing. “Sports are boring and dumb, but Eren and Mikasa like them so I can deal.” He nibbled the slice of toast, too sleepy to really make an attempt to eat it. “So? Can they come over or what?” If they couldn’t, he would wind up being dragged to some sports bar with a bunch of drunken sports fans and have to put up with a screaming crowd and probably wind up having someone spill beer all over him.

“I don’t mind,” Irwin said with a mildly apologetic smile, “You can have people over whenever you like, just tell me first.” That had been more or less what Armin had been expecting him to say. He stood up from his chair and tossed the toast back onto Irwin’s plate, then leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.

“Thank you,” he said, “I’m going back to sleep. Have fun at work.”

“I will. Enjoy your sports game.” Armin scoffed and shoved his shoulder, then exited the dining room with Romulus on his heels. The dog was rarely far away whenever he was around, and he happily jumped up onto the bed and snuggled up next to the blond as he settled back down to sleep the rest of the morning away. Mornings, he found, were nigh unbearable, which was why he chose to bypass them through sleep rather than experience them firsthand whenever he could. A short while after he’d settled back down he heard Irwin leave, and it didn’t take much longer after that for him to fall back to sleep.

When he’d told Irwin he was happy he’d meant it, probably more than anything he’d ever said but that hadn’t been what he’d really wanted to say. What he’d wanted to tell Irwin was that he loved him. For weeks the words had been swirling in his mind, teetering on the tip of his tongue, but whenever he got the chance to say them he found himself wavering. How could he tell this man that he loved him when they’d been together so short a time, when their relationship had started out so contentiously?

Not for the first time he wished he had a larger frame of reference when it came to romantic relationships. His first and only other boyfriend, Jean, had dropped the L word only a few weeks after they’d started going out, and he had started saying it back more because he’d felt like he had to rather than that he really loved him. That had changed over time—he had come to truly love and care for Jean, but this didn’t feel the same. What he’d felt for Jean had been like thunderstorm—dazzling and destructive. His feelings for Irwin were more like a sun shower. Warm, pleasant, revitalizing, beautiful; all of that and more but hopefully not as fleeting.

When his thoughts ran that way, Armin knew without a doubt that he had it bad. It wasn’t exactly as though he could help it, not when Irwin practically came right out and told Armin how important he was to him. _I’m the only one he treats this way_ , he thought. _That’s what he said_. Irwin treated him differently, treated him special, like _he_ was special. Nobody had ever really been able to make him feel that way. For years he had had people trying to convince him that he was worth something, that he needed to have more self-confidence. He had been only occasionally outspoken, more because he was defensive of facts than of himself, and that had rarely ended well for him. He’d found protection and comfort in his friends, and he’d slowly become surer of himself, but it had taken so long, nearly his entire life.

Jean had always made him feel…inadequate. Not intentionally, he thought. He’d always tried so hard to please his ex-boyfriend, and for the most part he thought he’d done a pretty good job at that. Jean could be sweet when he wanted to be. He could also be critical. Confrontational. He was smart, and he had an ego about it. Sometimes Armin had thought they were a bit too alike in that respect. Neither of them liked being corrected or outsmarted or manipulated. Armin had been better at that last one by far, though obviously not as good as he could have been. The way their relationship had ended certainly showed that, had showed the flaw in that type of dishonesty.

Somehow with Irwin it worked. He wasn’t afraid of telling the older man how he felt, what he thought, and Irwin could see right through him when he tried to play games. Maybe that was the difference—Irwin could read him so well that there could be no misunderstandings, no deception. They had known each other for less than half a year. Aside from his two best friends, there was no one else who could do the same.

_I love him_ , he thought. He loved that Irwin could read him like that. He loved the way the older man treated him so gently, as though he was something precious. He loved that he was the only one who got to see that side of the infamously cold, ruthless businessman. He loved the way Irwin fucked him. He loved the way he always kept his hair perfect, had it touched up every week so the sides stayed short and buzzed. He loved when Irwin came home from the gym, all fresh and showered and wearing frumpy work-out clothes. He loved that when he was too tired to come over, Irwin would come to his teeny apartment to keep him company. He loved when the older man visited him at work, loved how tall he was, loved his pale, knowing eyes, loved his body, loved his mind. Armin loved _him_.

Would it be okay to tell him that? Would Irwin feel the same way? Would he say it back? Armin was in turmoil. He knew he was going to say it, but he thought it would be best to wait, to save it for the right moment. Valentine’s Day was coming up, but saying it then would be silly and cliché. It had to be something better, something _real_. He wanted to make Irwin feel the same way that he did when they were together. Important. Happy. Needed. He deserved to feel that way. Every time Armin traced the scars on his back, tried to imagine what it must have felt like to have his flesh riddled with scraps of burning metal, he wished he could make him forget it all, replace all that fear and pain with love.

He woke rather suddenly only three hours after he’d gone back to bed. His heart was pounding, and he thought he might have been dreaming but he couldn’t remember what about. Romulus followed him into the bathroom, then into the kitchen. It was still early, but his head was swimming with thoughts of Irwin, of how he was going to tell the older man that he loved him. The thought made his stomach twist with nervous anticipation, and he had no idea how he was going to be able to keep it to himself until the moment was right.

Romulus watched him intently as he made himself a cup of coffee and toasted a bagel. “Be gone, beggar!” Armin cried, pointing toward the doorway. The mastiff took a few steps in that direction, then turned back toward him with a hopeful look on his face. Armin took pity on him, and smeared a large dollop of cream cheese on his nose, which distracted the dog long enough for him to finish preparing his breakfast. “No, I gave you cream cheese, go away,” he said as he was followed into the living room. “You want a bath? Huh? I’ll wash the shit out of you. Then I’ll trim your nails and clean your ears,” he threatened. The mastiff cocked his head, ears flicking backward as he turned and skulked off behind the couch. “Yeah. Slink away.”

When he woke up early enough he liked to watch reruns of Boy Meets World, or the Golden Girls. Sometimes he was even lucky enough to catch Saved By the Bell. Today, though, he decided to catch up on some Fresh Prince. Irwin didn’t watch much television—when he did he usually watched political shows, or Law and Order, or something similarly boring. That morning he must have been watching the news before he left. Armin fetched the remote from where he’d left it by the entertainment center, keeping an eye on his breakfast while he sipped coffee and pressed the power button. Romy was eyeing him from behind the couch, probably thinking he was being slick.

“…live right outside of Titan Enterprises headquarters, where only moments ago the two were taken away.” Armin glanced back at the television, the image onscreen that of a female reporter huddling in the stiff midwinter breeze, microphone gripped in both hands. The plaza behind her was one very familiar to him—it was the one where he and Irwin had first met.

For a moment he wasn’t entirely certain what he was seeing. The words didn’t register in his mind until he read the report title beneath the newswoman’s bundled frame. Titan Enterprises Excecs Arrested Under Accusations of Embezzlement. He didn’t realize he’d dropped his mug until he felt the hot rush of coffee spilling over his toes, and even then he didn’t look down. He couldn’t. The screen had switched to a recording of a stoic-faced Irwin and a darkly furious Levi being escorted toward police cars under the flashing scrutiny of a media circus.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your comments and kudos on the last chapter! You guys are the best, and I would bake you all cookies but I’d probably eat them all before you got a chance to have one. 
> 
> So, I’m speeding the legal proceedings up for the sake of plot reasons and stuff. But just so we all know I’m not completely full of shit, an arraignment is meant to happen within forty-eight hours of arrest, and a trial by a grand jury can take up to a year to take place, but I’m just gonna Law & Order this thing out, because I do what I want. Not to mention that I’m fairly certain somebody with money would be able to speed things along, from either a prosecution or a defense position AKA I’m actually just full of shit.

Eren and Mikasa couldn’t seem to find the right words to say. “I’m sure wherever they took him is nicer than a normal jail,” Armin’s oldest friend said uselessly as he patted the blond’s rigid spine.

“Well, you would know,” Mikasa said, shooting Eren a look that said he was not helping. Over the years Eren had been arrested his fair share of times, though most of those instances had taken place during their adolescence. To everyone’s relief, he’d finally begun to calm down since moving to the city; otherwise he’d probably have been in prison by now.

“Oh, sure, throw that in my face,” Eren huffed, “I’m just trying to say I’m sure he’s not being treated like some street thug. Yes, Mikasa, like they would treat me, okay. At least I’m trying.” He gave her his own petulant “so there” sort of look, and went back to smoothed his hand in circles on Armin’s lower back.

Mikasa sighed, and placed a hand on Armin’s shoulder. He hadn’t said much since they’d arrived, and they had shown up little under an hour after he’d turned the television on and seen the report on Irwin and Levi’s arrest. It had been hours since then. _Hours_. It was nearly dinner time, nearly the time when most people were coming home from their nine-to-fives. Irwin was usually home later than that, intrepid businessman that he was, not that this was in any way a typical business day for him.

“Why hasn’t he called?” Armin wondered aloud, the first words he’d spoken in over an hour. “People get a phone call when they’re taken to jail, right? So why hasn’t he called me?” He held his phone in his hands, staring almost endlessly at the screen as he waited for Irwin’s name to appear. His eyes felt strained, overtired, but he couldn’t relax. Not until he knew what was really going on.

Though he couldn’t see their faces, he could practically feel his friends exchanging glances behind his back, especially after Mikasa’s slightly delayed response. “I’m sure he has a good reason,” she said. The news had been playing all day long, the same stories repeating over and over again until he nearly had them memorized. Every time the arrest report played there was no new information, though, and each time it made him feel sick to watch, but he couldn’t stop. Not when he hadn’t heard from Irwin all day, and the image of him being escorted through the press of reporters was the only connection he had to his boyfriend at the moment.

“There’s all kind of legal shit you have to do first,” Eren said, “Fill out forms, talk to the cops, talk to a lawyer, to a judge. There’s the whole arraignment, and that might not happen for _days_ …,” He trailed off, biting his lip and looking like he wasn’t entirely sure about what he was saying. Armin nodded along anyway. Eren had only ever been arrested for getting into fights. He was sure something like embezzlement and corporate espionage—and everything else they were saying Irwin and Levi had done would be a lot more complicated—take a lot longer to sort out.

“They didn’t do it,” he said, even though neither of them had ventured to ask.

“Of course not,” Mikasa agreed in that smooth way of hers, so calm and collected.

“They _didn’t_ ,” he insisted. They were all seated on the couch, his friends on either side of him while he hunched in the middle cradling his phone and alternately staring down at it, then up at the television. “Ugh,” he huffed, pushing up to his feet and combing a hand through his hair. His heart felt strange in his chest, tight even as it seemed to flutter too fast. He tried not to think about how Irwin must be feeling, how furious he would be. Probably not as angry as Levi, but he would be close. Armin could almost picture him, hear the cold way he spoke when someone had managed to stir his ire. He couldn’t decide if that mental image was comforting or not.

“You know,” Eren said slowly as Armin paced out from behind the coffee table and toward the entertainment center. There was a story on the TV now about a firefighter who adopted cats saved from burning buildings. He’d seen that one about thirty times today. Next would be the one about the man who’d murdered his wife with a meat thermometer, and after that there would the weather report, then Irwin’s story again.

“I know what?” Armin prompted when he didn’t go on, folding his arms and reaching up to gnaw anxiously on his knuckle.

“You haven’t known this guy that long. How do you know…you know…?” Eren trailed off again, wincing at the sharp look Armin shot him.

“How do I know what? That he’s not a criminal? That he wouldn’t steal money from his own damn company?” Armin couldn’t help feeling a hot rush of anger, though admittedly it wasn’t all directed at his friend.

Eren held his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “Sorry, okay, I didn’t…look, I’m sure you’re right. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s alright,” Armin muttered contritely. “You guys haven’t even met him.” He knew they were worried; worried about him, wanting to protect him, to do what they always did and make sure he didn’t get hurt. That was how it had always been between the three of them—at the moment, he wished it wasn’t. He didn’t mind being comforted, but he didn’t want to be coddled. No, what he wanted was Irwin. Irwin didn’t pull punches, didn’t sugarcoat. He would tell Armin everything, and that would be more comforting than all the reassuring platitudes in the world.

For a moment they were all silent. Armin stared down at the floor, at the expensive carpet where he’d spilled his coffee this morning. The stain was still there. It would have to be professionally cleaned, and he could only hope the blemish would come out. Irwin wouldn’t be angry with him either way, of course. Somehow that made him feel even worse.

“Do you want us to leave?” Mikasa asked after a few long, hushed minutes. He felt a little guilty for ruining their night, but was trying not to. They would tell him he was being silly if he mentioned it, that he was more important than a football game, but he’d spent so much of his life owing them that he couldn’t help it.

“No,” he said softly. Even if he felt bad about it, he didn’t want to be alone. Romulus was lying by the door, watching and waiting. He’d been loafing about all day, as if he knew something was wrong. Which he did, of course. Dogs could sense when a thunderstorm was coming, so he had to be able to tell that Armin was upset about something. He turned back to his friends, saw them both watching him with concern. Eren’s was plain, written all over his face, while Mikasa’s was carefully measured. _I don’t deserve friends like them_ , he thought. They were only looking out for him, and he didn’t want them to think he was ungrateful. “I’m glad you guys are—,”

The security system interjected with a quick beep, followed almost immediately by the rattle of the door being unlocked. Romulus scrambled to his feet, tail whipping, and Armin thought he might drop to his knees when his boyfriend appeared in the front hall, coating swinging off his arms as he took in the scene waiting for him.

“Irwin,” he said. Before he could think, he was moving. He was in Irwin’s arms, cleaving to him, feeling himself practically shaking with relief. The older man’s hand carded through his hair, pressing him close, and they stayed like that for a moment, Armin resting his head against Irwin’s chest, right above his heartbeat. _He’s back,_ he thought. _He’s back and he’s okay_. Which meant now it was time to get some answers out of him. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked, pulling away abruptly and glaring up at the older man.

Irwin answered him with a tired smile, and it was then that Armin noticed with a renewed feeling of guilt how weary he looked, how utterly exhausted. That it was showing so baldly on his face and in the set of his shoulders bespoke just how badly things had gone for him. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing the hair back out of Armin’s eyes. “We were talking to the police all day, then to lawyers, and a judge, and I didn’t want to call you just to say I didn’t know when I’d be home.” He might have kissed the blond then, but he looked up as if remembering that they had visitors.

Armin turned and saw his friends watching, Eren uncomfortable, Mikasa with the slightest smile. He took Irwin’s hand in his own and pulled him forward. “This isn’t the best way for you guys to meet,” he sighed, “Irwin, these are my friends, Eren and Mikasa.” It was an awkward introduction, or maybe he just imagined it. But he’d hoped for his friends to meet his boyfriend under happier circumstances. Irwin shook their hands and smiled, but he looked so worn out, so ready to be done with company. “It’s very nice to meet you both,” he said, “but I’m afraid I’m in no state to entertain. Armin?”

“Yeah?” he said, giving his hand a squeeze.

“I’ll be in my office.” He pulled away, and slipped down the hall without another word.

“Well,” Eren said with a somewhat helpless shrug once he was out of earshot, “he does seem nice.”

Mikasa elbowed him, and moved forward to wrap Armin up in a hug. “We’ll let you guys be alone,” she murmured.

“Thanks,” he said, “For everything today. You too.” He held out an arm to Eren, and he came over to join them.

When he found Irwin, the older man was leaning back in his chair, a hand over his eyes. Armin had never seen him so haggard. Without a word, he came around the side of the desk and reached for him, drawing his hand away. “Hey,” he said softly. The older man smiled, and gently grasped his wrist, pulling him down to straddle his lap. Armin smoothed the wrinkles in his shirt, running his hands up to his boyfriend’s shoulders and tugging at the loosened tie around his neck. “Tell me what happened,” he said, reaching up to place a hand on the older man’s cheek.

“I know you’ve been watching the news,” Irwin answered evasively.

“I was also refreshing Google every five minutes to see if there were any updates,” Armin said, unimpressed. “Tell me.”

Irwin huffed one of his laughs, and turned his head to kiss the younger man’s palm. “The board called a meeting as soon as I walked in the door. We didn’t have time to find out what their angle was before we got there. Zacklay went on for a few minutes about an ‘investigation’ _they’d_ been working on. They had essentially everything Levi and I had collected, taken from our computers and offices, and all of it colored to point toward us as the perpetrators. Then they brought in the police.” Armin heard a low, angry noise emanating from his own throat, a growl like an animal.

“They have to know that’s horse shit,” he said, “I mean, you told them right? You told them you were collecting evidence against someone else?”

“They said if that were true then we would have come forward with our findings sooner,” Irwin said. He sighed heavily, wearily. “It’s a mess. They let us out on bail after the lawyers squabbled about whether we were likely to ‘flee the country,’ but we’re not allowed to leave the city. I’m meeting with my lawyer again tomorrow—,”

“I’m going with you,” Armin interjected immediately. “No, don’t argue. You’re not leaving me out of this. I’m going.”

Irwin stared steadily into his eyes for a moment, and then he relented, “Alright. But you are not under any circumstances going to talk to the media. I won’t tolerate them anywhere near you.” Armin choked back an argument—it wasn’t that he was in any rush to have his name on the news, but he didn’t like Irwin telling him what he was and wasn’t going to do.

“Okay,” he said, tapping a finger against the older man’s nose, “But you only get to pull the overprotective boyfriend card once a year. Deal?”

“Deal,” Irwin said with the slightest upturn of his lips. At the very least, after everything else that had happened, he could still smile. Armin leaned in and kissed him, quick and soft, and then got up from his lap.

“I’ll make you something to eat,” he said, pulling the older man’s hand to get him out of the chair. “Anything you want. As long as I can cook it in the microwave.”

That got another smile out of him, and a laugh. “How about I make _you_ something?” he said as he got to his feet, “Some real food for once.”

Armin paused in the doorway, looking up at him incredulously, “You can cook?”

“I taught myself while I was recovering from my injuries after I was discharged,” he explained. At Armin’s continued wide-eyed silence he shrugged and said, “I had to have something to do or I’d have gone crazy.”

“You…,” Armin shook his head in disbelief, “Are you messing with me?” It seemed surreal after the day they’d both had, that Irwin was offering to make him something to eat when he’d never done it before.

“No,” Irwin said, placing his hands on the younger man’s shoulders and steering him down the hall toward the kitchen. “What do you want? I’ll make you whatever we have the ingredients for.” As it turned out, all there was in the kitchen for an actual meal was a box of spaghetti of questionable origin, and an accompanying can of pasta sauce. Irwin could have made him ramen noodles for all he cared, though. His boyfriend was making him dinner even though he’d had possibly one of the worst days of his life. Nobody had cooked something for him in ages, but Irwin seemed happy to, even with the given circumstances.

“You don’t have to do this if you’re too tired,” he said, fluctuating between concern and delight. 

“Nonsense,” was Irwin’s reply.

“Alright, well…You _do_ realize that now that I know you can cook you’re never getting rid of me, right?” Armin said as he and Romulus earnestly watched him working. Irwin hummed in response, then told him to go wait in the dining room instead of hovering over his shoulder. Armin couldn’t argue—he was too pleased by this turn of events. It was such a one-eighty from the rest of the day, and he didn’t want to break the illusion by being contrary. “I can’t believe you hid this from me,” he said eagerly from his seat at the table, watching his boyfriend approach several minutes later.

“I didn’t hide it,” Irwin said with a small, crooked smile as he placed the plate down in front of him. “I never have the time, or the chance to make anything. Not to mention the general lack of supplies.”

“Well, that’s your own fault,” Armin said. “I had to complain for _days_ before you went out and started buying groceries. You could have bought some of those tiny chickens to cook, or like a duck or something. Or _salmon_.” He caught the way Irwin was arching an eyebrow at him, and snorted, shutting up long enough to start stuffing pasta into his mouth. “Oh my God, Irwin,” he moaned dramatically, “Oh my _God_.”

“It’s just spaghetti,” the older man said, still looking tired but also amused.

“Spaghetti’s my favorite,” Armin said before taking a thoughtful bite, “Actually, Sour Patch Kids are my favorite, but they’re not really food.” They fell silent, and Armin noted with annoyance and worry that Irwin didn’t eat much. _I can’t really blame him_ , he thought. _He was_ arrested _today, and he still did all this for me_. He swallowed thickly around his food, finding it suddenly leaden in his mouth as he set down his fork. _Tell him_ , he thought, _tell him now_. He could feel the words bubbling up, but he reached for his glass and choked them back down. What was he going to do, blurt it out over dinner like an idiot? Irwin looked exhausted, like he was at the end of his rope. No, now was not a good time.

_Or maybe you’re just a coward_. He swallowed hard again and stared down at his plate. Why couldn’t he say it? What was wrong with him? Was he waiting for some magical, mythical perfect moment to come traipsing along like a unicorn? This wasn’t a romantic comedy. No, there really wasn’t much about this day that had been comedic, but Irwin making him dinner made him want to leap into the older man’s arms and kiss him silly.

“Armin?” He looked up to find Irwin watching him with concern. “Are you alright?” He realized he hadn’t finished his own food, but he found he wasn’t really hungry anymore either.

“You…You’re not…”

“Not what?”

“They’re not really going to send you to prison, are they? I mean, they can’t. It’s ridiculous.” Armin could hear the pleading tone in his voice, and he hated it. He was asking to be babied, to be reassured like a frightened child. He wanted to hear Irwin tell him it would be okay, which was stupid. It was Irwin’s entire _life_ , his whole career on the line. Armin was the one who should have been reassuring _him_.

“The charges are trumped up, and from a legal standpoint the case is flimsy, but…I won’t promise that everything is going to be alright,” the older man said softly, meeting his eye unflinchingly. “I can’t do that to you. If whoever is doing this wants to see Levi and I go down in flames, they’ll do everything in their power to make it happen.” Armin stared at him for a moment, and then he was on his feet, circling the table and throwing his arms around Irwin’s shoulders, leaning down into him where he sat as the older man wrapped his arms around his waist.

“They can’t,” he said as he buried his face into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck, “I won’t let it happen.”

“Oh, Armin,” Irwin murmured into his ear as he smoothed a hand down the younger man’s back. It hurt something in him to hear those two words, tinged as they were with something akin to appeasement, as if Irwin didn’t think he could do much to make a difference but didn’t have the heart to say it. Maybe that was true, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try. It didn’t mean he’d just sit back and let whoever was behind this get away with it.

X

Armin hunched down in his seat, wincing at the flashes of light in spite of the tinted windows that hid him from view. Whoever was outside the car would only be able to make out the vaguest shape, but that didn’t stop him from worrying. From the driver’s seat, he heard a small noise of irritation, and he looked up to see Irwin staring flatly through the windshield as he navigated his way out through the parking garage gates.

It was midmorning, and they were heading to the offices where his and Levi’s attorney was waiting. The younger man wasn’t really sure what he’d been expecting, other than this. Up and down the street there were news vans parked, the reporters and paparazzi within waiting like vultures for Irwin to emerge. They must have known which car was his, because as soon as it pulled up to the valet booth, they descended.

“Just run them over,” he suggested as Irwin eased forward, pushing past them as they shouted at him for answers.

“That would certainly help my legal troubles, I’m sure,” the older man replied.

“Don’t be a smartass,” Armin muttered back at him as he reached up and pulled his penguin hat down further on his head. He knew Irwin’s attempt at levity was for his sake, but he wasn’t really in the mood to exchange witty jabs. Even though violence was more Eren and Mikasa’s forte, he found himself holding back the desire to jump out of the car and smash one of those flashing cameras into its owner’s face.

“I wish you’d stop glaring like that,” Irwin said, eyeing him sideways as they finally pulled out into traffic, “You’re acting like I’m already on my way to the headsman’s block.”

“And I wish you’d stop acting so Zen about all this, like you’re fine with whatever happens to you either way,” Armin shot back. The older man was being so very calm about the whole thing, so… _Irwin_ , while Armin had been feeling increasingly apprehensive with each passing second. The worst part was not having all the details, not knowing what evidence Irwin had levied against him and what they had planned to counter it. That was the primary reason why he’d insisted on coming today. They would both get the full story, and they would get it at the same time, together.

“Armin, I’m trying to keep a level head. Panicking about it won’t do me any good, nor will acting like Levi.”

The younger man blew out a tense breath, and relented slightly, “I know that. I just…I’ve never had someone I care about in this kind of trouble before.” He let his eyes flick quickly to the left, saw Irwin steadfastly watching the road, but he knew the older man was listening. “If I told you that I’m scared, would you think I was being silly?”

“You know I wouldn’t,” Irwin responded gently, taking one hand off the wheel and reaching over to give his arm a squeeze.  Armin nodded and swallowed thickly, turning to gaze out the window so that Irwin wouldn’t see him struggling to keep his face free of emotion. After last night he’d been alternately battling feelings of unbridled fury, and sinking melancholy. Once he’d gotten past his sense of relief at having Irwin back, the illusion had worn off and he’d remembered that the reprieve was only temporary. If Irwin could remain calm in the face of all this though, then he should do his best to do the same.

The law office was in a surprisingly small building in a dauntingly familiar part of town. Armin sank even further down in his seat when they passed the building where Jean worked. Even though the chance of running into him was rather small, the very thought of it made his stomach squirm. Jean didn’t know he was seeing someone, and didn’t need to know. He most definitely didn’t need to see Armin and Irwin together. Irwin gave him a funny look when they stopped at a light and he nervously kept checking the mirrors as if expecting Jean to jump out from behind a mailbox and catch them, but the older man said nothing. Hopefully he just attributed it to fear of being followed by the paparazzi—Armin didn’t really want to add to his stress by bringing Jean up now.

He didn’t feel any less anxious once they had parked and entered the law office. A bored looking girl behind the front desk informed them that Levi had already arrived, and they could head back to the conference room. She barely batted an eyelash at the way Armin held onto Irwin’s arm as they made their way through a set of double doors and down a short, brightly lit hallway. “I should warn you,” Irwin said as they stopped outside a door that was helpfully labeled “conference room A.”

“Warn me about what?” Armin asked, feeling a spike in his anxiety.

“Hanji can be a bit…eccentric. Hopefully the gravity of the situation will encourage her to reel it in, but…”

“I can handle eccentric,” Armin said. Rude or obnoxious, no. As long as she could find a way to get Irwin off the line, he could tolerate just about anything.

Irwin nodded, reaching down to push the door open, but before he could even touch the handle it was yanked back from his grasp. They both started back as a woman in a grey power suit nearly barreled right into them, stopping just barely short of doing so. “Ah, Irwin you’re here!” she cried, clapping her hands together as her eyes widened behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses. Her gaze dropped down to Armin, and she grinned broadly, “And so are you! Good, come in, come in. Levi was glaring a hole through my head, so I was just about to go hunt down some donuts, but this is even better.”

Before either of them could say anything, she reached out and grabbed them by their coats and hauled them through the doorway, pushing them toward the long table in the middle of the room. When she shut the door behind them it felt a bit like being trapped, especially when Armin spotted Levi and the absolutely venomous way he was staring at just about everything. He only relaxed when he saw Petra next to the furious man. She gave him a tense smile, and gestured for him to sit across from her.

“You’re late,” Levi said, arms tight across his chest and jaw clenched with obvious indignation.

“There were reporters surrounding my building,” Irwin replied, calm as ever.

“Goddamn bloodsuckers,” Levi seethed. He looked like he might have gone off on a vitriol laced rant, but Petra patted him on the shoulder, and said dryly, “There were some outside when we got here, but Levi scared them all off. I’m pretty sure it’s going wind up on the five o’ clock news.”

“I told him it wasn’t going to help your case, but he just flipped me off,” their lawyer said jovially. “Anyway. I’m Hanji for those of you who haven’t met me before.” She pointed to herself, and then stared directly at Armin, who squirmed uncomfortably as Irwin helped him out of his jacket.

“This is Armin,” Irwin told her as the younger man quickly took a seat. She arched an eyebrow at him, and he sighed and added, “Yes, he is my boyfriend.”

Satisfied, she clapped her hands together again, looking pleased, “Why Irwin, you didn’t mention you were seeing anybody.”

“Well, gee, maybe that’s because you’re his fucking lawyer, and not his hairdresser,” Levi spat, “Can we get down to business now, or shall we continue with gossip hour?”

“Alright, alright, keep your underoos on,” Hanji replied pleasantly as she reached for a briefcase at the head of the table. As if someone had flipped a switch, the moment the case was cracked open her face adopted a thoughtful intensity Armin wouldn’t have thought her capable of. She began to pull out folders and papers, arranging them neatly on the surface of the table as she praised Levi for keeping extra copies of all the dirt he’d dug up.

“I know you’ve been conducting your own investigation, but our best option is to prove that you yourselves were not directly involved any embezzlement or corporate espionage,” she began.

“What about the real culprit?” Armin objected before he could stop himself.

“That would take too long,” Levi said, “We have to try and pull a case together before the indictment trial. My sources tell me that the board is doing their level best to get things rolling to that end, which is bullshit.”

“Right,” Hanji agreed, “So if we can stop this thing before it really gets started, then you guys can go back to rooting out your thief.”

“And cleaning up the board of directors,” Levi growled, “I’m gonna force every one of those old bastards into early retirement.”

“Anyway,” Hanji said, trying to get the discussion back on track, “We don’t have a lot of time—normally we would have more, but like Levi said, the prosecution is pushing for an indictment and I’m sure your friendly board of directors is going to pave the way to the courtroom with hundred dollar bills. So if you don’t mind, I’d say we get down to business.”

An hour later, the conference table was covered in neat rows of paper, and Armin was following the conversation with shrewd concentration. “The prosecution is going to play this dirty,” Hanji was saying, “they have a lot of circumstantial evidence that’s going to be difficult to refute. We have to focus on defense, and call them out on their weaker points.”

“The whole case is a weak point,” Levi scoffed, “This is absolutely ridiculous. They say they have a ‘source,’ but they won’t give a name, so it’s all hearsay unless they call them as a witness.”

“Yes, and we have to prepare a defense based on that possibility,” Irwin said. “If they have a witness—a _viable_ witness—then they would be fools _not_ to call on them to testify.”

Armin reached for the paper Levi had been looking over, and the aggravated businessman passed it to him with another aggrieved noise. “Of course they’re fools. They’re fools to believe that you or I would actually do any of this.”

“It could also just be a frame-job,” Petra supplied, “They could easily have planted all this ‘evidence’ for you to find, and then turned it all around to make it seem as though you were the ones responsible. You _are_ always saying that they’re just looking for an excuse to oust you both.”

“We _have_ considered that possibility,” Irwin said, “but like Hanji said, this isn’t the time to go pointing fingers. It’ll just look like we’re displacing blame to offload suspicion.”

“Is that really a bad thing?” Armin asked, fighting off yet another wave of quiet frustration as he skimmed yet another legal document.

“Perhaps not, but if they’re as petty as you’ve told me then we can use that to our advantage,” Hanji said, “Let them come off as mud-slingers, and it’ll make our side look that much better in comparison.”

“I do like the idea of making them look bad,” Levi said thoughtfully.

“Well, since that’s settled,” Hanji segued, “This witness of theirs says they know of ‘secret meetings’ Irwin’s been having with a mysterious outside accomplice. Armin, I think that’s what you’re looking at. I take it you have an alibi for the dates they’ve indicated?” she asked, nodding to Irwin as he leaned over in his seat.

“I can’t be certain,” he said, “I’d have to check my—,”

“What do you mean ‘you can’t be certain?’” Armin balked, “Like, ninety percent of these are days you spent with me.” He looked up to see that everyone was staring at him, and he felt his face heating up, “Well, they _are_.”

“Are you sure?” Hanji asked.

“Yeah,” he said, “See? That’s the night I, ah, gave you your Christmas present. And that’s the first time you brought Romy to me for a bath.”

“You just remember this off the top of your head?” Levi asked, somehow managing to both scowl and look mildly impressed.

“Yes,” the blond said a tad defensively.

“Well, that’s perfect!” Hanji said, obviously relieved, “We can call on you to testify, and—,”

“No.” Armin jumped when Irwin spoke beside him, his monosyllabic interjection taking them all by surprise.

“No?” the younger man echoed, incredulous, “You can’t just say no. This is a huge hole in their case!”

“We’ll find something else to poke holes in,” Irwin said, leaning forward with a steely expression, “We’re not putting him on the stand.”

“Uh, ‘him’ is right here,” Armin said, feeling his ire rising, “You can’t just forbid me from testifying.”

“He’s right, Irwin,” Petra said, “I mean, this proves they’re just full of shit.”

“I told you, Armin, I don’t want the media getting a hold of you,” Irwin said, finally turning to address the younger man, “What do you think will happen if you testify? They’ll drag us both through the mud.”

“I don’t care,” Armin countered adamantly, “You can’t protect me forever, Irwin.”

A tense silence filled the room, a silence that might have been awkward, but Armin was too irritated to notice. He locked eyes with Irwin, glaring, trying to stare him down, but before either of them could cave, Hanji broke in. “Well, how about we keep this on the back-burner then? I’m sure we’ll be able to find something else, if we’ve already turned up such a glaring error.” She didn’t sound so sure, though, and that made Armin’s already fraying temper flare up all over again.

The rest of the meeting was rocky, to say the least. Armin refused to participate, knowing anything he could think to say would be terse and biting, and Levi was passing enough of that around for all of them. After another hour or so of listening to the rest of them bicker over facts and legalities, he began to feel a dull throb behind his eyes and wished more than anything that they could just leave.

“Are you alright?” he heard Irwin ask as Levi snapped at Hanji about yet another wordy legal procedure.

“I have a headache,” he answered succinctly, rubbing at his forehead and closing his eyes so that nobody would be able to see how aggravated he felt.

“Do you want to go?” the older man inquired softly, his tone almost annoyingly mollifying.

“Yes,” Armin said with reluctant gratitude.

They made it to the car before Irwin made any other attempts to assuage him. “Do you want to get anything to eat?”

“No,” was the short reply.

“Armin,” he said with a sigh as the blond hunched sideways in the passenger seat, leaning against the window. He tensed when he felt fingers on his face, brushing his hair back, and he reached up to push the offending hand away.

“Don’t touch me,” he muttered. A few seconds passed in silence and he sat up and shot Irwin his surliest look, annoyed all over again by the lack of expression on his boyfriend’s face. “I can’t believe you’re being so obtuse about this,” he said accusingly, and with just a touch of apprehension.

“Armin, I told you—,”

“No, you _forbade_ me,” the younger man snapped. “I should have kicked your ass for that, you know. You don’t have any fucking right to tell me what to do!”

“I know,” Irwin said, infuriatingly calm and contrite. “I was out of line.”

“Yes, you were,” Armin fairly snarled, leaning back into his seat again. It was rare that he worked himself into such a temper

“You understand, though, right? Why I can’t let you testify?” the older man asked him.

“Yes, I understand, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a completely idiotic reason.” Irwin looked like he might have continued, but Armin overrode whatever he was going to say. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. You’re too calm, and I’m not and it’s pissing me off. I need an Excedrin or something,” he grumbled, running a hand through his hair and realizing suddenly that he was missing something. “Oh, crap.”

“What?”

“My hat. I must have left it inside.” Before the older man could offer to go get it for him or something else ridiculously chivalrous that would just annoy him even more, he threw open the car door and clambered back out. “I’ll be right back,” he called as he hurried once more into the building.

The receptionist barely spared him a glance as he rushed through the lobby, and back down the hall. The ache in his head was beginning to work its way up to a throb, and he knew he should have just let Irwin come back inside, but the man just made him so _angry_. They’d had other little arguments before, but nothing like this. Aside from the somewhat contentious beginning of their relationship, Armin couldn’t recall being this furious with the older man before.

_It’s him, right?_ Irwin was being the unreasonable one here. He thought he was protecting Armin, but in doing so he was harming himself, and it was all entirely avoidable. _I can’t believe he’s being so stubborn_ , he fumed as he neared the conference room. He could still hear Levi and Hanji inside through the slightly open door, talking in normal voices for now. “…that’s all we can really hope for,” Hanji was saying.

“Yes, and it’s not really much to go on, is it?”

“No,” she admitted, “Do you think you could talk to him about it? Convince him that letting Armin testify might be our only option?”

Levi scoffed, “I could try, but I doubt he’ll come around.”

“Why’s that?” Hanji asked, and Armin thought she sounded a bit sly, but Levi apparently didn’t catch it.

“What are you blind? Irwin’s in love with that kid. It’s sickening. There’s no way he’ll ever let him take the stand.”

Armin could hear Hanji replying, but he didn’t pay any attention to what she was saying. Levi’s words rang in his mind, and he stood frozen by the door for a moment, replaying them to make sure he’d heard them right. _Irwin’s in love with that kid_.

“Something wrong Armin?” Hanji asked when he pushed the door open.

“Forgot my hat,” he said, hoping he didn’t sound too strained. He grabbed the accessory off the floor beneath his seat, avoiding the way Petra stared after him as Hanji and Levi went back to arguing. He fled the room, down the hall and through the lobby, out the door. The car was idling by the curb, and he quickly pulled the door open and slipped quietly back into the passenger seat.

Irwin was silent, probably assuming that Armin was still in no mood to speak to him. The younger man watched him for a second, and then he took a deep, steadying breath. “Irwin.”

“Yes?”

“I understand,” he said, glaring down at his lap and furrowing his brow as he ordered his thoughts. “I know why you don’t want people to find out about me. I know, but…It’s the same reason why I can’t just sit around and let people accuse you of being some criminal.” He looked up to see that Irwin was giving him an odd look, but before he could decipher it, it was quickly replaced with his usual calm façade.

“I know,” the older man said, reaching out to stroke Armin’s neck, slipping a hand underneath his hair to work his fingers into the tense muscles.

Armin reached up and took hold of his wrist, making sure he couldn’t pull back, and said, “If you guys can’t find anything else you have to promise me that you’ll let me defend you.” He was somewhat gratified to see a hint of surprise flash across Irwin’s features, and he squeezed the older man’s arm, feeling his fingers stilling on his neck. “Please, Irwin. I don’t want to be mad at you, not during all this.” He knew it was manipulative—they both did—but he didn’t care.

For a tense minute Armin thought he might argue, thought he might refuse and start listing reasons why. He shivered when Irwin pulled his arm back, taking Armin’s hand with him and bringing it to his mouth. “Alright,” he murmured, as he pressed his lips to the younger man’s fingers, “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took me a while mainly because I was being a big baby about writing it. I have poor circulation in my hands so my fingers get extra cold during the winter, especially when I'm writing so I was like, "I can't write today my fingers will get cold, I'm gonna take a nap instead." You know. That.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm muy gomen. This was supposed to be the last chapter for this part, but it sort of got away from me. I know the ending here sort of rehashed what happened in the last chapter (arguing/tension/etc.), but I promise I have a point. I think any relationship would be strained going through something like this, especially a relatively new one. I also had to rewrite a large part of the ending, and I’m not really sure that I’m happy with how it turned out, but I didn’t want to make you guys wait anymore. Thanks for sticking with me even when I'm a butt and take forever to update. Your comments make me want to squish your faces with love. 
> 
> p.s. I’ve been trying to complete my Pokedex, nobody told me it would be this hard.

“But I don’t _want_ him shaved.” Armin reached up to smooth a hand down his face, quietly beseeching any deity that might be listening to give him the strength not to jump out the nearest window. That they were on the ground floor didn’t have any bearing in this silent prayer—he was sure crashing through the glass would hurt enough on its own, but it might have been preferable to having this argument again.

“Ma’am, I don’t really have a choice,” he said, glad for the fact that he didn’t sound half as incensed as he felt. She pursed her lips and looked down at the unfortunate dog that had wound up in her obviously incompetent hands. He was a mess, matted to the skin, and maybe it was just that he was speaking from experience, but he could tell the situation was hopeless before he’d even touched the poor animal. There wasn’t a comb on Earth that could have worked through that coat.

Behind the reluctant customer he could see someone approaching the store through the frosted glass windows, and he looked away just in time to see Irwin push through the door. The older man greeted him with a silent wave, glancing at the woman Armin was speaking to as he pulled a hesitant Romulus through the door. The blond nodded toward the woman and rolled his eyes, and he caught the almost imperceptible smirk Irwin offered in response just before she looked back up.

“I don’t see why you have to shave him,” she said with a stubborn set to her jaw, “I just gave him a bath last week.”

“Well, just because he’s matted doesn’t mean he can’t be washed, though it’s not recommended,” Armin said, “Bathing them when they’re like this just makes it worse.” He could see she wasn’t convinced and he fought the urge to roll his eyes again.

“But when I took him to Petco, they brushed him out,” she fairly whined.

“Okay, well good for them,” Armin said sarcastically, finally having had enough. They had been going back and forth for about ten minutes now and he really couldn’t take it anymore. “But this isn’t Petco, and I’m not gonna torture your dog just for the sake of aesthetics—unless you think blotchy bleeding skin is attractive. I mean, do you have any idea how much that would hurt him, or are you just too concerned with how visually pleasing he is to care? Because that—,” he jabbed a finger in the direction of the dejected looking animal—, “is by no means a good look for him, _and_ it’s yanking at his skin like you wouldn’t believe. If you wanna get bitten trying to run a comb through that then be my guest, but _I’m_ not gonna do it.” He was surprised that he managed to get all that out without actually yelling, but she was staring at him like he’d threatened to stab her with his grooming shears.

He half-expected—and was actually sort of hoping—that she would turn around and walk out the door, but she tremulously assented to have her dog shaved. She signed the release and scurried out of the salon, and Armin loosed an aggravated sigh as he let her dog into the salon area and shut the door behind it.

“You should consider a career in customer service,” he heard Irwin say behind him, and he turned to give the older man a dirty look as he approached.

“Don’t you think I’m rude enough as it is?” he asked as the older man bent to kiss him. Ymir must have chosen that exact moment to poke her head out of the laundry room, because he heard a sharp wolf-whistle from the back of the salon followed by a shouted, “Yeah baby!” He closed his eyes and shouted back, “Stop perving on me and my boyfriend you creepy spinster!”

“Stop sucking his face and get back to work and maybe I won’t,” came her retort. At times he lamented telling his coworkers about their relationship, but it was easier than pretending that Irwin was just another client.

“You could never be rude enough,” the older man said in answer to his question, trailing a finger underneath Armin’s chin with an amused look on his face. Underneath that he looked tired, but then that hadn’t really changed much in the past few weeks. When he wasn’t working on preparing for the indictment trial, he was either being hounded by the media or working out of his home office. Armin usually had to bully or seduce him into bed to get him to rest, and it worried him. All of it. Watching Irwin work himself to death even in the face of everything that was happening made his heart ache, and all the more so since there wasn’t much of anything he could do about it.

Romulus nudged him with his cold, wet nose, and Armin patted him absently as he asked, “Are you going to be late tonight?”

“Probably,” Irwin said with a sigh, “If I haven’t called you by the time you get out of work, just bring him back to your place. I’d hate to make you drive all the way across town in this weather.” Armin glanced toward the window, but with the distorted glass he couldn’t really see much outside other than vague shapes and a strong palette of white. The weather report that morning had claimed that it was supposed to snow most of the day, and that information had almost been encouragement enough for him to stay home. With Irwin working practically round the clock with Levi and Hanji, he would have just been cooped up in his increasingly lonely apartment watching Maury all day long. That would have driven him crazy, so he’d sucked it up and come to work. There were few enough appointments during bad weather, but at least he would have company.

Lowering his voice slightly he asked, “Have you guys come up with anything?” He knew he didn’t have to elaborate for Irwin to know what he was talking about. This wasn’t exactly the first time he’d asked him the very same question.

“We’re working on it,” Irwin said with a reassuring smile, “We have some promising leads. When the trial comes we’re going to give them a run for their money.” Somehow Armin was less than relieved. Irwin had been handing him these vague answers and assurances for quite a while now. He knew if he asked for details then the older man would give them, but on some level he knew that nothing they came up with could obliterate the prosecution’s case the way his testimony would. When it came down to it, he didn’t want to know, didn’t want to have to worry more than he did already.

There wasn’t really much for it but to wait and hope. He felt miserable and useless enough without constantly dwelling on things. Irwin said he had to get to a meeting with Hanji, so Armin kissed him goodbye, then pulled Romulus through the door and behind the desk. The matted dog was sitting in a corner, and Armin stared at him for a moment, mentally preparing himself for the showdown that was about to occur. Shaving him was going to be infinitely easier than trying to brush his mats out, but it still wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

“What do you think?” he asked Ymir as she came out of the laundry room with a stack of towels. “Should I bother with a seven or go straight to a ten?”

“Fuck that,” she scoffed, shaking her head at the raggedy animal, “You might have to break out the surgical blade for that shit.”

Resignedly, he got to work, carefully peeling away what must have been a year or so worth of thickly matted hair. Christa came back from her lunch break, looking like a miniature Abominable Snow Man and lamenting the thick snowfall outside. _Great_ , Armin thought. Driving home in a blizzard with a huge dog in his back seat was not something he was looking forward to. At least by the time they got out, the snow plows would have had several hours to work on salting and clearing the streets.

Christa offered to give Romulus a bath—likely because she was bored—so by the time he had finished working on the matted dog there was nothing left to do. “We should go home early,” Ymir grumbled as she glared at the blank appointment log. Armin’s dog was a miniature poodle underneath all that hair, but now he just looked like a skinny white rat. The three groomers amused themselves for a while watching Romulus try to make friends with him, even though the smaller dog was having none of it.

“Romy, take a hint,” Armin said after the poodle tried to nip him on the nose for the third time. The poor guy needed some big dogs to hang out with.

A few tedious hours, and one tense car ride in the snow later, Armin slogged into his apartment, mastiff in tow. Romulus immediately proceeded to sniff every square inch of the neglected residence, while Armin shut the door and began pulling his damp clothes off without preamble. It had taken a half an hour to dig his car out and clean it off, and then he’d had to walk Romy up and down the block outside of his apartment building before the dog finally chose a spot to go the bathroom. His coat and hat were soaked with melting snow, and his grooming clothes weren’t much better off.

Once he was down to his underwear, he bundled it all up in his arms and dumped it all in the hamper in his bathroom. By the time he made it back to the living room, Romulus was sniffing around in the “kitchen” and whining. Armin nearly smacked himself in the head when he realized he didn’t have any dog food. “I’m not going back out there,” he told his canine guest. There was a pack of sausages in his fridge, though, and he figured Irwin could just get over that whole “no people food” rule of his. He cut the sausages up into slices and then managed to fry them without burning them too badly. In an effort to balance what was certainly not a healthy meal at all, he mixed them with a can of green beans and then set them on a plate on the floor. Romulus attacked the dish like it was the food of the gods while Armin made himself a sandwich.

“Oh my God, you greedy butt,” he grumbled when the mastiff followed him over to the couch and stared at the sandwich like he’d never had food before in his life. “Okay, maybe the no people food rule was there for a reason.” He tried to resist, he really did, but he wound up picking some cheese out of his sandwich and sharing it with the pathetic animal. “You’re lucky you’re cute, Romy,” he said as his phone began to buzz. He had picked a random movie to watch on Netflix, but he was having trouble following it anyway, with a dog the size of a house hovering over him.

He picked up his phone and saw he had a text from Petra. He had given her his number shortly after their first meeting at the law office, and he was glad he had. It was nice having someone else who was familiar with Irwin’s life to talk to.

_Levi is pissing me off_ , the text read. _Want to get coffee tomorrow?_

_Yeah what time?_

_They have another meeting with Hanji at ten. Want to hit Maria’s around then?_

_Sounds good._

_Good because I need to talk some shit and I can’t with these spoiled bitches my mom makes me hang around._ He laughed at that, startling Romulus with the short sound. At least he could talk to Petra where he couldn’t with Irwin. She was far less grim than either Irwin or Levi, and she was insightful as well. Not to mention the fact that they were both in the same position, making it feel somewhat like they were in this together.

_I’m always up for talking shit,_ he told her, though in reality they each knew how worried the other one was. If he was being honest with himself, then he would say he was actually terrified, but it was easier to joke around than think about what might actually happen. “If he goes to jail me and you will bust him out, right pooch?” he asked Romulus. The dog answered by jumping up on the couch and trying to sit in his lap.

X

“And it’s like, he can’t talk to me about it without acting all surly. Then when I tell him to stop acting like such a shit he gets all pissy with me.” Petra was halfway through a slice of cake and on her second latte by the time Armin managed to get across town to meet her. He’d had to drop Romulus off first, and he had underestimated how bad traffic would be after the storm.

“You could always try slipping him a mickey,” he suggested as she paused to take a bite of cake.

She snorted, and said, “I would, but all he drinks is liquor, so I think he’s built up a resistance. I haven’t even seen him drink water in all the time I’ve known him. And I don’t want to kill him, you know. Just calm him down.” Armin took a sip of his coffee and watched her scrape frosting off of her plate with a butter knife. He hoped she wasn’t starving herself again, because she’d eaten that cake like Romulus usually ate…well, anything made of food.

“Anyway,” she said once her plate was as clean as it could get without her actually licking it, “How are things going with Irwin?”

“Fine, mostly,” he said, leaning forward on the table with his chin in his hand. “He’s so calm about the whole thing. Tense, but just…unruffled.”

“That sounds like him,” Petra said with a thoughtful smile, “You know my dad and his dad were colleagues?”

“Really?” he asked, twirling a plastic straw in his mug. “Did you know him when he was younger?” He’d been dying to hear stories about Irwin’s youth, but the older man was a very dry and reluctant storyteller. Whether this was deliberate or not, he wasn’t sure.

“I met him a few times, but I was more interested in ponies, and scrunchies, and stupid girly crap than anything my dad was involved in,” she explained, “And he was so quiet, with this serious look on his face all the time. I don’t think I ever even heard him speak until after he took over Titan Enterprises.” Armin found himself fighting a grin—somehow the thought of Irwin as a quiet and solemn young man didn’t surprise him at all.

“Did you ever talk to him then?”

“Not really. I was in college, and trying to avoid my family as much as possible. My mother mentioned him to me once or twice, because she wanted me to marry him and start having his babies as her own personal form of legal entrapment.” Armin snickered, and she gave him a smile, “I’d heard rumors by then that he only liked boys, and he was a little too stiff for me besides. No offense.”

“He can come off that way, I guess,” Armin admitted.

“Well, not so much anymore. He’s been much more ‘tractable,’ as mother says, since you started dating. She still thinks I have a chance with him,” she rolled her eyes, “She hates Levi, and she’s convinced that that’s the only reason that I like him. It’s a perk, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not the only reason.”

“What _do_ you like about Levi?” he asked, realizing a moment too late that his tone was more than a little impolite.

Petra just laughed, and said, “He’s not as terrible a person as he pretends to be.” She took a long sip of her latte, and in the moment of silence Armin chewed his lip and checked his phone. He had an angry text from Eren about how much he hated the computers at his school, but nothing from Irwin.

“Has Levi…when you talk to him, I mean…has he said anything about the trial?” he asked in a low voice. The café was packed, and there was little chance of anybody eavesdropping on them, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

“You mean have they come up with anything other than your solid alibi?” she asked dryly, “Not that he’s told me. I keep asking him about it, and he just rolls his eyes and says he’s sure they’ll pull something out of their asses.”

“So you think they’ve got nothing?” he asked, feeling a twist of anxiety in his stomach.

“I’m sure they have _something_ ,” Petra said, reaching over the table to squeeze his hand, “They keep talking about how weak the case against them is. They just don’t have anything else that completely disproves the accusation.”  She frowned then, “Hasn’t Irwin talked to you about all this?”

Armin winced, “No. I mean, he promised that if they didn’t come up with anything that he’d let me testify…” He pursed his lips and stared down into his coffee, letting the sentence hang.

“But?” Petra prompted.

“But I think he was lying,” Armin admitted. “I heard Levi say he would never allow it.” And as much as he wanted to be mad about that, to be furious, he simply couldn’t summon an adequate level of indignation. Because Irwin loved him. He didn’t have to hear it directly from him to know it was true. Irwin wouldn’t treat him the way that he did if he didn’t love Armin as much as Armin loved him. He knew he shouldn’t let that be an excuse to allow the older man to lie to him, no matter how well-intentioned the deception was. Aside from confronting him about it, Armin wasn’t really sure what he could do.

“Couldn’t you talk to him about it?” she asked, echoing his thoughts.

“If I do, we’ll just end up fighting,” he answered with a sigh. “I don’t want to fight with him. He’s stressed out enough as it is. You should see him at the end of the day. He barely eats, and he looks so tired all the time, like this is killing him.” He bit down on the inside of his mouth, feeling a pang of sorrow just thinking about it. “I just…I can’t wait ‘til this is over,” he said, reaching for his cooling coffee and taking a sip to soothe the lump in his throat.

“Me too,” Petra sighed. “I feel useless, not being able to do anything to help.” Armin nodded in agreement; he could certainly get behind that sentiment.

“All I feel like I can do is be supportive,” he grumbled. It made him feel like an ornament, an unnecessary embellishment in Irwin’s life that couldn’t do anything worthwhile to contribute to the relationship. If he had his way, he would round up Mikasa and Eren, arm them with baseball bats, and they’d all go pay the prosecutors a little home visit. But no, that would be “ _illegal_.” “It’d be so much easier to just bash a few kneecaps,” he muttered to himself.

Petra snorted, smirking into her coffee as she shook her head. “You’re a vicious little thing,” she said with approval.

“When I have to be,” he grunted, “When I find out who did this to him, I’m gonna make them wish they were never born.” He didn’t doubt that he would find out, and it didn’t matter how long it took. That much at least he could do, and when he finally hunted the perpetrator down, he’d make them suffer. Irwin was a good man. No matter how ruthless he made himself out to be in the public eye, it didn’t change the fact that underneath it all he was sweet, gentle, and caring. Devious, yes, but they both were, and Armin wouldn’t change that about him. Even if it _was_ a little frustrating at times.

“Can I be there when you do?” she asked, looking a little vicious herself for a moment. At least he wasn’t the only one who felt the way he did. He grinned at her, and opened his mouth to go into detail about what he had planned, just as his phone began to ring.

“It’s Irwin,” he said, feeling a little tug of unease as he pressed “accept” and held the phone up to his ear. “Hey,” he said, lowering his voice as he covered his other ear with his hand to block out the background noise. From the roaring sound coming over the phone, he could only assume that Irwin was driving, which bothered him. Deciding to pick his battles, he deigned not to berate him about talking on the phone while driving on the icy city streets, and said, “Is the meeting over already?”

“No, but I left early. I need to talk to you.”

“About what?” he asked, knowing on some level that there was only one thing that could tear him away from a meeting early.

“Meet me at the penthouse,” he said, “I’m only a few minutes away.”

“Okay. I’ll see you in a while, then.” He hung up, and exchanged a worried look with Petra. “I have to go,” he said, as her phone began to ring. He figured it was probably Levi, and he didn’t waste any time waiting for her to say goodbye. She was already answering, waving him off as he stood and donned his jacket.

Irwin was already home, waiting for him, just like he said he’d be. “Hi,” Armin said, feeling his voice squeak with disquiet. The older man had been sitting in his office chair with his hands folded in his lap, but he stood when Armin appeared in the doorway. He didn’t need to wait for him to speak to know why he’d needed to speak with him so badly—it was written all over his face. “It’s the trial,” he said, “they set a date.”

“Yes,” Irwin told him, looking dour.

“How soon?”

Irwin gave him a look that made him want nothing more than to comfort him, no matter that he’d groused about being good for nothing but support less than an hour ago. If his boyfriend needed support, then he would be there to deliver it, and if he needed somebody to assemble a posse and show up on his enemies’ doorstep, then Armin would be there for that as well. “Monday,” he said.

Armin tensed—that was only four days away. Four days, and despite Irwin’s best attempts to school his face, he could tell that it was too soon. There hadn’t been enough time. “There’s no chance that you can get it delayed or something?” he asked, knowing that before he even finished speaking what the answer would be.

“Hanji’s working on it, but it’s unlikely,” he said. He stroked a lock of hair back behind Armin’s ear, and leaned down to press his lips against the worried crinkle in his brow. “You don’t have to worry,” he murmured, pulling the blond in against his chest. “It’ll be alright.”

In spite of his best efforts, Armin felt his temper flare. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he said, pulling back just far enough to look up at the older man’s face. “I know you’re not gonna let them call on me to testify, and I know you don’t have any other evidence, so don’t tell me everything is going to be alright!” He could hear his voice getting louder, and he tried to reel it in, but he was tired, and scared, and he loved Irwin so much it made him want to scream.

“Armin—,”

“Don’t ‘Armin’ me!” he huffed, pulling out of his grasp entirely, “Do you think it’s easy for me to watch you suffer and not be able to do anything about it?”

“Of course not,” Irwin said, tone cloying as he reached out to caress Armin’s hair again. The blond grabbed his hand, but instead of pushing it away, he held onto it, weaving their fingers together and giving Irwin an imploring look.

“I’m going to testify,” he said. “You can’t stop me.”

Irwin regarded him with an expression that was almost sad. “I suppose I can’t,” he said softly. Armin blinked in surprise. He’d been expecting…well, he hadn’t really expected him to agree. He’d thought that what Levi had said was true, that Irwin wouldn’t let him take the stand, no matter that he had promised to do so. “I’m sorry, Armin.”

“Sorry?” he said, “Sorry for what?”

“You’re right. I was lying to you. I didn’t want to let you testify. I was going to do anything to keep you safe. I even thought about having you barred from the courtroom,” he admitted with the slightest frown.

Armin took a step back, an expression of hurt twisting his features. “And what if they decided to indict you? You’d wind up in jail until they tried you, and then you could have wound up in prison, and I’d have just been sitting around hating myself for not doing anything about it!” Armin felt a small twinge of satisfaction at the chagrined look on Irwin’s face. All the same, he reached out for his hand again, and gave it a squeeze as he said, “I don’t care what people say about me, or who knows about us. As long as I can be with you it doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Irwin murmured. Armin shivered as the older man leaned forward, reaching up to cup the back of his neck as he pressed their foreheads together. Irwin had never called him by a pet name before, and it made his insides squirm with pleasure in spite of his anger. “I don’t deserve you,” he said as he held Armin against him. That hurt more than anything else he’d said, because he sounded as if he meant it.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking, “Of course you do.” It had never occurred to him that Irwin might feel that way, and it was almost absurd for a man like him to feel unworthy of Armin. If anything, it should have been the other way around. But it wasn’t. Irwin hadn’t ever made him feel that way, he had only ever made him feel wanted.

The older man ran a thumb along his jawline, and kissed him almost carefully, with the barest flutter of his lips. “Everything will be fine,” he said. “I promise you, and I mean it this time. The chance of an indictment is slim, even if you didn’t end up vouching for me. There’s no way they can touch us. There are still too many holes in their case for them to get an indictment by any honest means.”

“And what if they use dishonest means?” Armin asked.

Irwin gave him a painfully weary smile, and shifted just enough to press his lips to the younger man’s forehead. “You underestimate Hanji. She can be just as conniving as any other lawyer. Any fake witness they call won’t be able to stand up to her questioning.”

Against his better judgment, and all of his instincts, Armin felt himself relenting. Again. “How do you do that?” he grumbled as he slipped his arms around the older man’s torso.

“Do what?” Irwin asked, resting his chin on the top of his head.

“Completely disarm me. Make me feel silly, like I’m blowing things out of proportion. It’s very annoying,” he murmured into his boyfriend’s chest.

“I don’t mean to,” Irwin said, “I just want to put your mind at ease, and I don’t want you to be afraid, no matter what happens.” That last part coming from anyone else would have seemed condescending, but Irwin had to know the feeling of terror that was ruling Armin’s heart.

“I really hate this,” Armin sighed. Irwin tightened his arms, and Armin felt his lips against the side of his head.

“I know. But by this time next week it’ll all be over, and we can move on with our lives. We can even get out of town for a while if you want,” the older man murmured into his hair.

“Are you kidding me?” Armin huffed, pulling back and shooting him an incredulous look. “This isn’t all just gonna go away! We have to figure out who’s behind all this!”

“We?”

“Yes, we!”

“Armin,” the older man placed his hands on the blond’s shoulders, “This is a corporate issue. It’s going to take some time to sort it all out. We can afford to take a breather once this is finished.”

“Maybe _you_ can, but I can’t,” Armin said, hunching his shoulders up as he folded his arms across his chest, “Irwin, I can’t stop thinking about it. Do you remember that time I was drunk and I said that I didn’t like it when ‘somebody hurts what’s mine?’ The phrasing was wrong, but I _meant_ that. I can’t stand that somebody did this to you, and I _can’t_ let it go.” He reached up and gave one of Irwin’s hands an emphatic squeeze.

“I didn’t think you remembered that,” Irwin said with a wry little smile. “But I hope you know that I feel the same way. I couldn’t stand it if somebody did or said something to hurt you.”

Armin sighed, but couldn’t stop the way those words made his heart flutter. He stood up on his toes and pressed a quick kiss to the older man’s mouth. “Don’t be an idiot,” he whispered. “I know you’re just looking out for me.” He knew that, but this was more important. He might end up on the news, but that was better than his boyfriend being stuck in jail. _That’s not going to happen_ , he thought. And Irwin was right; it would all be over soon, and then they could focus on finding out who was responsible for putting them through this.

He settled back into Irwin’s arms and tried to calm his racing mind. He had a feeling that the next four days were going to be the longest days of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve been alternately lying around and trying not to have an anxiety attack over the fact that I’m unemployed and slowly but surely running out of money, and then actually going out looking for jobs. I have an interview tomorrow, so once I have a source of income I might stop being such a shithead and update this regularly. I swear, the last time I was unemployed I wrote an entire sixteen chapter fic in three weeks. Idk what my issue is. 
> 
> I'm sorry if this wasn't all that great. Not having people to argue with made my brain smooshy.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I got that job I mentioned last time. I’m a supervisor at this store and there’s like mountains of completely unnecessary paperwork, and people talk to me like I’m dumb ಠ_ಠ . I’m sorry this took so long, tho, I’m a total butt and I don’t deserve you guys. I really wanted to get this up for Valentine’s Day, but I obviously failed orz. I had like 90% of this written by then but then I hit a wall and literally was of no use to anybody for another month. But I’ve been reading your comments and thinking about Winmin a lot, and kicking my own ass to get this written. And just a heads up, the last quarter of this chapter has not been edited, because if I wait another second to post it I’m afraid it’ll just wind up rotting on my flash drive. I’m so sorry don’t hit me with pool noodles*gross crying*
> 
> P.S. I’ve decided to stop attempting to be hecka realistic about this legal stuff. Cuz y’know CSI doesn’t have to be realistic, so why should I? I’ve read a bunch about indictments, and it’s not as exciting in real life as it is in my head, so there. Like, I wrote all this stuff, and then I find out that indictment trials are supposedly secret proceedings? Whatever American Law, gtfo. I could write a better legal system with my butt. 
> 
> P.P.S. I know Hanji was officially declared to be a non-binary character, so in all future fics I will refer to them as such, and I will try to work that into this story as well somehow.

Armin woke up early the day of the trial, though he couldn’t remember falling asleep the night before. In truth, he hadn’t thought he’d be able to. For him, most of the night had been spent lying awake, staring at Irwin’s sleeping back, tracing the scars there with his eyes. He didn’t know how the man could actually sleep. He didn’t even flinch when Armin laid a hand on his back, splaying his fingers against the crisscrossed flesh. The man was not a heavy sleeper by any means, but he’d once told Armin that he was well-trained enough to differentiate between what was and was not a threat.

“You’re still an idiot,” he had muttered under his breath. An idiot whom Armin was in love with. He’d shifted in closer and nuzzled his nose between the older man’s shoulder blades, and the next thing he knew he was waking up in bed alone.

For a few minutes he just laid there, trying to pretend that today was just an ordinary day. The whole thing had a sense of unreality to it that made him want to believe that he’d just dreamed it all up. But he knew he hadn’t, and he knew he had to get out of bed. The shower was running in the bathroom, and since the sheets were still warm next to him he figured Irwin had probably just gotten in.

The mirror was fogging up, but was just clear enough for him to be able to see the dark circles underneath his eyes. He was surprised he didn’t look like some wide-eyed maniac—he was furious, but it was a cold, tired fury. Someone, someday was going to pay for this. All of it. He would make sure of it, somehow. First, though, they had to make it through today.

Beside him came the rumble of the glass shower door, and he saw it shifting aside out of the corner of his eye. “Good morning,” Irwin said over the rush of pouring water. He sounded so calm. As if this was a normal morning. When Armin looked over at him, he even smiled. “Get in,” he said, crooking his head to the side in invitation.

Armin swallowed hard, and slipped out of the t-shirt and shorts that had been his sleeping clothes. He climbed into the shower behind his boyfriend, watching as Irwin ran his hands back over his hair. When it was wet, or messy, it hung down in his eyes. He was so gorgeous, so handsome. So perfect.

_I love you_. The words were on the tip of his tongue when Irwin turned around to look at him. “What’s the matter?” he said.

“What’s the matter?” Armin echoed, “You mean, aside from the fact that after today you might be going to jail for who knows how long?” He heard a note of accusation in his tone, and tried to quell his simmering frustration. He closed his eyes, squeezing them shut until the wave of emotion passed.

“You don’t have to cry, Armin,” Irwin said soothingly, as he reached out and took hold of the younger man’s arm, pulling him forward to stand under the stream. The water poured from a flat, square spout directly above them, like a waterfall. It was one of Armin’s favorite design aspects of Irwin’s home, because they could shower together without having to shuffle around and take turns under the water.

“I’m not crying,” he denied, drawing an arm over his eyes, then smoothing his hair back as it became slick. Maybe he had teared up, but he didn’t have any energy to spare to actually cry. All of it was tied up into a tight bundle of prickly anxiety somewhere in the center of his chest, where it churned and battled with a hundred other emotions. If he gave in to one he would give in to them all, and be left a quivering, sobbing mess on the floor. Logic won out over all of these feelings, because he knew that Irwin needed him, and he wouldn’t do anybody any good if he had some sort of breakdown. _Irwin is on trial, not you_ , he told himself.

“And I’m not going to jail,” Irwin said in that deep, reassuring tone of his, the one that soothed over Armin’s taut nerves like black ice on a dangerous road. “The trial could take days for all we know, so you shouldn’t pin all your worries on today.” The older man pulled him close, and Armin quickly placed his hands on his hips, smoothing his hands over the wet, firm skin. Oddly enough, Irwin seemed surprised when he felt the blond’s hands sliding down to take hold of his cock. “Armin, you don’t—,”

“Yeah, I do,” he interjected, giving the flaccid member a deft, upward stroke. Irwin fell silent, placing a hand on the back of Armin’s neck, and leaning down to rest his forehead against the blond’s. He felt his lover’s cock stirring against his palm, growing hot and hard as he continued to move his hand. The other hand he moved to his own dick, already responding in kind, and he gave himself a squeeze. It wasn’t as gratifying as the way Irwin pushed his hips forward, or how the older man ducked his head further and kissed the side of Armin’s mouth.

“Sit down,” he murmured, trailing his mouth across the younger man’s jaw before pulling back and guiding him backward toward the edge of the tub. There was a little protruding seat there, set just at the edge of the water, as if whoever had designed this shower knew exactly what purpose it would serve. Armin found himself sinking down onto it, felt Irwin kneeling between his legs until their cocks were flush, wet and throbbing against each other. One hand found purchase on the back of the older man’s head, and pulled him forward so that Armin could kiss him, gently slotting their lips together as his other hand once again grasped his cock.

For his part, Irwin just held onto him, hands gently kneading the younger man’s thighs as Armin stroked them both. His own hands were so small, he wound up having to use both, though really all he cared about at the moment was Irwin’s pleasure. This was for him, so that if the worst happened, if he wound up sleeping in a prison cell tonight, at least he could have _this_. Armin wasn’t going to cry, or be defensive and angry. For today at least, he was going to be exactly what Irwin needed him to be. Even if it hurt.

The older man groaned, the sound echoing in the tiny, steaming chamber, and began steadily pumping his hips into Armin’s hands, grinding his erection against the blond’s and making him gasp. He took advantage of Armin’s open mouth by closing his over it, and kissing him deeply. Armin made a noise of approval, slipping it past Irwin’s tongue as he began to stroke his boyfriend a little faster. Abandoning his own cock entirely, he ran his hand up to the head and roughly began massaging the ball of his thumb into the slit, while his other hand fisted itself into Irwin’s hair.

It only took another few minutes of this grinding and stroking before Irwin came, the hot spurts of his seed hitting Armin’s belly as the older man groaned his name against his neck. The blond just held him, running his hands across Irwin’s shoulders and down the back of his neck, and kissing the spot behind his ear.

After a moment, the older man lifted his head, placing kisses across Armin’s forehead and down to his mouth, where he murmured against flushed lips, “You didn’t come.”

“Your dick is too big, I couldn’t hold them both,” Armin said bluntly, because it was true. He was still hard, still wanting, and Irwin laughed like this was any other morning and edged back a little as he pushed Armin’s thighs further apart. The blond didn’t protest, because he knew it wouldn’t do any good. He did like it when Irwin sucked him off, though it didn’t happen very often. Not because he was insecure, or anything silly like that—he was smaller, but Irwin had never commented on it, had only ever touched Armin like he was something perfect, so he’d decided it didn’t matter. He was simply the one who usually took charge, and Irwin only ever seemed to enjoy it.

Now with Irwin’s mouth around him, he wished they’d done this more. He wished they’d done everything possible, spent every spare second together, and not just lying in one-another’s arms, but doing cheesy couple things like holding hands in a movie theater or eating food off each other’s spoons in fancy restaurants. Even though he knew Irwin was right, that he was acting like the older man was already being taken away from him, he couldn’t help but feel like there wouldn’t be any more chances. He curled himself around his boyfriend’s body, hunching over him and clutching, making soft, wet sobbing noises that weren’t caused entirely by the pleasure shooting through his stomach. After he came, in a moment of weakness, he clung to the older man and whispered plaintive words over the hum of the shower. “Don’t leave me,” he said, not demanding for once, just pleading and exposed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Irwin promised him, and even though it wasn’t fair, Armin knew he’d hold him to it.

X

Dread roiled through his stomach as he took a seat on the wooden courtroom bench, the sensation dizzying, but it didn’t nauseate him quite as much as the sight of all the people here. Why? Why was his boyfriend’s misery being made into some sort of spectator sport? The room was huge, but it was still nearly packed full with curious onlookers and reporters. Only the special “press” pass Hanji had handed to him had allowed him entry. “If anyone asks, you’re a journalist,” she’d said, giving him a wink and squeezing his arm. Nobody questioned the fact that he didn’t seem to have anything to take notes with, even though he’d been patted down at the security checkpoint by the front doors.

There wasn’t supposed to be any flash photography allowed during the actual proceedings, so the paparazzi seemed to be getting their fill now while everyone was still waiting. Armin watched them with what he was sure was a thinly veiled expression of contempt as they flitted around the room, snapping pictures of the crowd and the empty judges’ podium and witness stand. The courtroom wasn’t really what he’d been expecting. On television they were always so polished, comprised of dark, shining mahoganies and decorated with flags and marble flooring. This one was rather boring by comparison, at least on the surface. The floor was covered in ugly grey carpeting that ended at equally ugly grey walls, and everything seemed to be made of out cheap pine or some kind of wood composite. If Armin hadn’t known any better he’d have thought it all looked rather staged, like they’d put all this together last night.

He did know better, however, and this courtroom was all too real. There was a buzzing sensation against his leg, so he took his phone out, and after debating for a moment turned it off completely, then stuffed it into his back pocket. Somebody sat down next to him, so he shifted, sitting up stiffly and folding his hands in his lap. His stomach did a strange little flip-flop when he looked up at where Irwin would be sitting, and he bit down nervously on his lower lip. The first few rows had been filled already when he walked in, so he was four full rows back from the short barrier wall that stood between audience and the counsel tables. Perhaps it would be better this way; if he was too close to Irwin he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to control himself. Particularly if the prosecution began to get nasty, and he was sure that they would.

Somebody edged past him, and he had to pull up his knees to let them by. If he’d had any sense he would have sat on the end, even though he wouldn’t have had as good a view. At least he’d have had a quick way out if he needed to run to the bathroom and vomit, which he was beginning to think he might need to do. Now he was surrounded, though, six deep on each side and no way to avoid being seen if he had to make a run for it.

There was a flurry of activity at the back of the room, and he whipped around a bit too fast, hoping to see Irwin and shrinking down into his seat when his eyes fell on what could only be the prosecuting team. Bile came creeping up his throat when he saw Nile Dawk, and he swallowed hard, sinking even further in the hopes that the man wouldn’t notice him. Dawk was flanked by several other men in suits—one of them was Dallis Zacklay, so he could only presume that the others were all lawyers or lackies. Should he be worried that the prosecution had an entire _team_ , while Irwin and Levi only had Hanji?

By then he was most definitely battling a serious case of nausea. The people next to him shot him curious glances when Dawk passed by their row, looking down at him with furrowed brows as he slipped so far down in his seat that his knees touched the bench in front of them. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about with this stupid trial; he really couldn’t have cared less what these spectators thought, not with Nile Dawk sitting less than fifteen feet away from him. Of course he would have to be here today, the slimy bastard, and if he saw Armin he would know why he was here, and possibly try to figure out a way to use that against Irwin.

He was so focused on watching Dawk and Zacklay that he didn’t even notice Irwin until the man passed in front of him. A small gasp slipped past his lips, and he sat up so quickly that the people on either side of him jumped in surprise. The guy to his left muttered something under his breath, while the woman on his right simply glared, but again he ignored them.

Perfectly composed, expression neutral and unreadable, Irwin Smith didn’t look like a man on trial. He wasn’t the smiling, loving man who’d held Armin in the shower that morning, but he looked for all the world like this was just another board meeting. Underneath that he _had_ to be nervous. Armin wouldn’t accept that he was as calm as he was presenting himself to be, though he believed that Irwin was more worried about his continued anonymity than the outcome of this trial. For now, he couldn’t be angry about that. All he could feel was the sting of acid bubbling at the back of his throat, the stomach-churning terror that this morning might have been the last time he would be able to hold Irwin in a very long time.

“All rise for the Honorable Judge Rose,” a commanding voice rang out over the din of conversation in the room. Armin rose hesitantly, waiting until everyone else around him was standing before getting fully to his feet. All chatting ceased almost instantaneously. Cameras disappeared, and their owners scurried to the back of the room as the bailiff announced the presiding judge. He had to stand on tiptoes to get a good look at her—a distinguished looking woman with grey at her temples, dressed in a long black judge’s robe. She made her way gracefully up to the podium before giving a nod to the bailiff, who immediately directed everybody to take their seats.

Armin dropped down like a rock, but Irwin took his time, turning and looking out over the sea of faces in a casual, indifferent manner. When their eyes locked, Armin’s breath caught in his throat, but it only lasted a second. Then Irwin was straightening his coat as he faced forward, and settled into his chair. The younger man didn’t miss the tight movements of his body, or the stiff set of his shoulders, and only barely suppressed a wince. On top of everything else, his back was bothering him again, and he couldn’t do anything about it.

The judge situated herself in her position above them all, and then called for the district attorney to begin stating his case. He was a thin, reedy looking man by the name of Herschel Reiss, wearing glasses and a sneer on his face, and the perfect companion to a smirking Dawk. Hanji’s voice played in the back of his mind as the lawyer began his speech, rattling off first Levi’s list of offenses, which included things like bank fraud, bribery, insider trading, embezzlement, money laundering, and tax evasion.

“ _Indictments are difficult to work around from the defendants’ position_ ,” Hanji had explained. “ _Typically only the prosecution is allowed to present evidence, or call on witnesses, but I have ways of making the system work for me.”_ She’d smiled at that, the expression somewhere between malevolence and glee. He certainly hoped her confidence was justifiable, because every charge read off that list felt like another nail in the proverbial coffin. Even with Levi’s back to him, Armin could practically feel the man scowling. Movement caught his eye, and he tore his gaze away from the D.A. long enough to see Petra seated two rows ahead of him on the far left near the aisle. She was scowling as well, staring murderously toward the prosecutors’ table. He decided he was glad they hadn’t sat together, otherwise one might have goaded the other into taking drastic measures.

Irwin’s list of charges was nearly identical, but expanded to include blackmail and extortion. “While Levi Rivaille is an accessory in these crimes, and therefore just as guilty, Irwin Smith is the executor and perpetrator—the mastermind, if you will—behind all scheming and fraudulent business practices at Titan Enterprises. He’s been shown to be ruthless, calculating, and intimidating, and that’s just in his _legal_ business dealings,” Reiss paused there, brandishing his stack of charges as he regarded the jury. _Grand juries are larger than a typical trial jury,_ Armin recited, studying the visible faces of the jurors for signs of belief in these lies. _The grand jury does not need a unanimous vote to indict, just a majority_.

“They can’t possibly be buying this horse-shit,” he muttered under his breath. Somebody shushed him, and he casually reached up to scratch the side of his face with his middle finger in a silent request that they kindly fuck off.

“Information technologists working for Titan Enterprises were tasked with creating a tracking program to flag suspicious activity within the corporate databases,” the district attorney was saying. He’d dragged out projector, and dimmed the lights to show this “evidence” of his. “In the months leading up to their arrest, there was a continually increasing amount of fraudulent activity taking place on the parts of both Mr. Rivaille and Mr. Smith. As you can see here, they were laying false data trails in an effort to cover up their illegal actions, which they’ve now claimed were aimed at disrupting the movements of a so-called ‘spy’ within the company.” His dry tone conveyed what he thought about that idea, and Armin was dismayed to see several people in the jury watching him attentively, nodding along in agreement.

Reiss drawled on for a while longer, his manner condescending but effective. Armin wasn’t blindly faithful enough in the system to fool himself into thinking an objective person couldn’t have been swayed by everything that was being presented. He knew how bad it all looked, because he’d seen these documents before. He’d helped Irwin look through them, and if he hadn’t known Irwin personally he might have even believed that he’d done what Reiss claimed he’d done. Without the ability to present a proper defense, he was afraid that that’s exactly what the grand jury was going to do— _believe_.

“Now if I may, your honor,” Reiss said in his oily voice, approaching the judge with a nod toward the witness stand, “I do have a witness I’d like to call.”

Judge Rose won huge points in Armin’s book when she looked down at Reiss like he was something nasty affixed to the bottom of her shoe. “Very well, Mr. Reiss,” she said, and he didn’t miss the quick flicker of her eyes toward the defense table.

“Thank you, your honor. Now the witness I’m about to call was essential in bringing all this scheming to light. She’s risked quite a lot in coming forward,” he addressed this to the jury, as if to impress upon them how dangerous Irwin could be to this witness of his. “I’d like to call Ms. Annie Leonhart to the stand.”

There was movement again to his left, someone ghosting silently down the aisle and through the swinging doors. She was blond, dressed plainly, and her expression was blank—not cool or impassive, just… _blank_. It stayed that way as she was sworn in, and every word coming out of her mouth could have been a lie for all the emotion her voice betrayed. Armin thought he was pretty good at schooling himself, and he knew Irwin was, but this girl was in a league of her own.

“Ms. Leonhart,” Reiss began once she was seated in the little witness box, “Explain to the court the nature of your relationship with Mr. Smith.”

“I was a liaison,” she said, delivery smooth and free of inflection, “a courier. I delivered information for him to various clienteles.”

“Did you realize the nature of this information?”

“Not at first,” she said, “not until he decided excessive paperwork was too risky. Then he began giving me verbal instruction.”

“Such as…?”

“He had me delivering messages. Threats sometimes. He would meet with me, and tell me who I needed to visit.”

“And did you realize that what he was doing was illegal?”

“Yes,” she said, casting her eyes over to where Irwin was seated, “but I needed the money, and at first I thought he was just cheating other rich people. Then I realized he was stealing from the poor, and threatening innocent people, but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it until Mr. Dawk approached me.”

“Mr. Dawk offered to help you, is that correct?”

“Yes. He asked me questions, and I was…reluctant, at first. I’d just spent months doing Mr. Smith’s dirty work, and I’d met a lot of his thugs, so I knew what he could do to me if I betrayed him. But Mr. Dawk said he could offer me protection, and he has.”

“And you can verify the names of the people he’s been blackmailing? The ones he’s stolen from?”

“Yes.”

Reiss smiled in what he probably imagined was a friendly manner, and said, “Thank you Ms. Leonhart. That’s all I needed.” Armin thought he might actually shake right out of his seat. He gripped the edge of the bench, knuckles white, trying to still the way his body trembled as rage like he’d never known pounded through his veins. His throat worked, and he had to bite down on his tongue and tear his eyes away from Reiss’s witness before the words he wanted to say came bursting out of his mouth. Instead, he focused on Irwin, staring holes into the back of his head. _What are you going to do about that_ , he thought. That couldn’t just be brushed aside, not with a witness who had a poker face like Annie Leonhart’s.

The girl made to stand, prepared to return to her seat, but before she could Hanji was on her feet and striding toward the witness stand. “Please take a seat, Ms. Leonhart,” she said. Reiss gaped for a moment, then hurriedly approached the bench, leaning up to whisper furiously at the unimpressed judge.

“Counselor Zoe has been given special permission by this court to cross-examine your witness,” she told him, not bothering to lower her voice.

“But…your honor, this is highly irregular. In an indictment trial—,”

“I know how indictment trials work, Mr. Reiss, and in certain circumstances the defense may cross-examine with the judge’s consent. Now please, go sit down. Zoe, if you please.” She nodded to Hanji, and the brunette waggled her eyebrows triumphantly at Reiss’s retreating back.

“Thank you, your honor,” she said, expression morphing to something manically fierce as she turned to address the witness once again. “Now, Ms. Leonhart…you say you’ve been meeting with my client on a regular basis for how long exactly?”

“About a year,” came the flat reply.

“A year. And do you have any proof of these meetings?”

Leonhart’s eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. This was obviously an unexpected turn for her, but that was the only sign she gave of being caught off guard. “There wasn’t really much of a paper trail. Like I said, he didn’t want too much paperwork involved.”

“And these clients he supposedly had you meeting with. Did he ever have any direct contact with them?” Hanji asked, prowling back and forth in front of the witness stand like a panther with her hands folded behind her back.

“No,” was the succinct reply.

“Were they aware that Mr. Smith was the man you were allegedly working for?”

“I...Yes.”

“But if he never spoke with them directly, then it’s conceivable that you could have been working for, well, just about anybody, correct?”

“I—”

“And I suppose I should inform you that Mr. Smith told me just before I began questioning you that the first time he ever saw you was _today_ , in this courtroom. What do you have to say to that?”

“Objection! Your honor, this is all conjecture, and it has no bearing in an indictment trial!” Reiss was on his feet, glaring daggers at Hanji, who only offered him another winning smile in return.

“He’s not wrong, Zoe,” the judge said, raising a questioning eyebrow at the attorney.

“I suppose not, but I believe I made my point. Without physical evidence, everything this witness has to offer is hearsay, your honor.” Reiss made a strangled noise of protest, and the judge ordered the jury to disregard what they’d just heard.

“Is that all, Zoe?” the judge asked once Reiss had settled down.

“There is one more thing. We obtained a list of dates and times that you claim to have met with Mr. Smith,” she said as she turned back to the table where she retrieved a single sheet of paper. “These are accurate to your knowledge, correct?” She held the paper out under Leonhart’s nose, and the girl glanced briefly down at the list before nodding. “So September the twenty-first, you met with Irwin Smith at three o’ clock in the afternoon in his vehicle outside the Sina Building?”

“Yes.”

“Then can you explain to me how he was able to sign a dated and time-stamped document all the way on the other side of town at the exact same time?”

“He…I don’t—,”

Hanji swiped another paper off the counsel table and stalked over to wave it in her face, “This, Annie. Irwin Smith left work early that day to bring his dog to a grooming salon, where he signed a release form. He then remained in the area to avoid rush hour traffic, made a purchase at three thirty-four at a nearby coffee shop, where he remained for several hours as he worked on his laptop. Then at five forty-seven, he was back at the salon picking his dog up, and he paid by credit card. That’s what a paper trail looks like, Ms. Leonhart. What do you have to say to that?”

“I…I must have been mistaken.”

“Mistaken? Why, if you were ‘mistaken’ about that date, then I can only imagine what else you might have been ‘ _mistaken’_ about.” Leonhart’s jaw worked for a moment before she pressed her mouth into a thin, grim line. “No further questions, your honor.” Hanji about-faced, and primly returned to her seat.

“You may step down, Ms. Leonhart,” Judge Rose said. The girl stood and hurriedly slipped back through the swing-doors and down the aisle. Armin didn’t bother watching her, didn’t wonder where Hanji had gotten ahold of Romulus’ release form, though he briefly wished that he’d thought of that. Of course. He’d been so focused on Irwin using him as an alibi, that he hadn’t even thought of it, though now it seemed obvious. _How could I have been so single-minded?_

It didn’t matter. That had to be enough, if the confident look on Hanji’s face was any indication. Somebody had thought of it, and now the prosecution’s entire case was completely derailed. He hoped. The jury pool was a sea of frowning, thoughtful faces, which had to mean the seed had been planted. _Guilt still has to be proven beyond the shadow of a doubt_. Hanji had certainly proven a certain amount of doubt with that cross-examination.

“Do you have anything else to share with the court, Counselor Reiss?” the judge asked, and Reiss stiffly informed her that he had presented all the evidence he had in his possession. “In that case, court is adjourned until further notice. The jury will remain to receive instruction, but all other parties are dismissed.” Armin sagged in his seat, sighing as he looked around for a clock. He was shocked to see they had been closed up in that courtroom for the better part of the day. It was almost five o’ clock, and the trial had begun just before noon. Stretching, he got to his feet, and looked around just in time to see Irwin leaving the courtroom, followed closely by Hanji and Levi.

People were slowly making their way toward the doors, and he tried to slip into the rank-and-file as they plodded along down the aisle. By the time he reached the hallway outside, he had no idea where Irwin might have gotten to. He was about to call the man on his phone when somebody “psst’d” in his ear, and plucked at the elbow of his coat. “Petra,” he said with a start, “Jeez, I thought you were Dawk or something.”

She beamed widely at him, and hooked her arm through his. “Did you see the look on his face when Hanji was nailing that Annie chick? He looked like he’d just swallowed a box of nails.”

“No, I was too busy trying not to burst into maniacal laughter,” he said, then in a softer tone, “Where’d they all go?”

Petra glanced around, as if to make sure nobody was paying attention, then gave his arm a tug as she nodded to the right. “This way.” Down a few twisting hallways, deeper into the building where there was no one else around, Petra began peeping into rooms until she found where Hanji had taken her clients.

“There you are,” Irwin said when she finally opened the right door. They were in a small office; Hanji sat behind a large desk, furiously flipping through a stack of paperwork, Levi stood by a window with his arms crossed, scowl deep and apparently not appeased by the proceedings, and Irwin had been standing by the door, waiting for them to arrive.

“I couldn’t remember which room you were in,” Petra said. “So, do we need to hang around, or can we get the hell out of here?” She put her hands on her hips and directed an impatient look at Levi, who simply rolled his eyes.

“Ask the lawyer,” he fairly growled.

“I need to finish up with these documents, but you can all go. I’ll call you when the jury gets back in,” she said distractedly, not even looking up from the desk as she waved a dismissive hand at them.

Irwin put a hand on Armin’s shoulder, and gave it a firm squeeze, smiling all the while as he said, “I told you Hanji would come up with something.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the younger man scoffed, but he couldn’t help grinning back at him in return, “How’d you even find that out, Hanji?”

“What, the grooming thing?” she said, looking up briefly from her work, “Well, I was staring at that list of dates last night, and the ones you’d marked as times you and Irwin were together when I realized, hey, this one was the only time you were out in public together!” She was sitting up now, talking animatedly as she continued, “Irwin said he didn’t want you involved, so initially I simply dismissed the whole thing, since any other eyewitnesses might have wound up leading right back to you. But I called the salon, and asked if they kept any sort of records, since physical evidence essentially speaks for itself and wouldn’t require your verification, and your lovely friend—Ymir, I believe—faxed the form over for me. And voila! _Alibi_.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of that,” Armin groaned, leaning his face into his hands as Irwin slipped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in close.

“Neither of us did,” the older man said consolingly, “Like Hanji said, if it involved you, I didn’t want to hear anything about it. In fact, I _didn’t_ hear anything about this until she started waving that release form under that Leonhart girl’s nose.” He arched a questioning eyebrow at the lawyer, who immediately grabbed up a packet of documents, holding it in front of her body as though it were a shield.

“Aha, well,” Hanji chuckled sheepishly, “It must have slipped my mind. But aren’t you glad it did? If I had said something you might have told me not to use it, and really, no harm done, right? Not for us anyway. I mean, you saw the look on Reiss’ face.”

“She’s right, Irwin,” Armin said, reaching up to tug on his boyfriend’s tie. “Can we go, now? I’m hungry.” Relief was like a weight lifting from his ribcage, allowing him to breathe again after weeks of slow suffocation. They still had to wait for the jury, but he couldn’t imagine after watching Hanji catch that witness in such a bold-faced lie that they could return with an indictment. They would have to all be completely incompetent to do that.

Irwin’s appearance of mild irritation melted away, softening as he looked down at Armin’s expectant expression. “Alright. Let’s go. Anywhere you want.”

“Finally,” Levi muttered, pushing himself away from the window and stalking across the room. Petra followed immediately in his wake, grasping his arm and flouncing jovially behind him as he pushed out into the hallway.

Armin made to follow, Irwin’s hand in the small of his back. The older man leaned down, pressing his lips against the blond’s ear. “I’ll meet you at the car, okay?”

“Okay,” Armin sighed. Irwin stepped out into the hallway with him, and pointed him toward the nearest exit as he handed him the keys to his car and said something about needing to speak with Hanji. “Don’t be a jerk about her going behind your back,” the younger man told him, “She’s a lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to be sneaky.” Irwin promised to be nice with one of his quiet laughs, and Armin left them to their work.

He pushed out through a side exit several minutes later, and found himself facing a darkened parking lot. It was hard to believe they’d been in this place for so long—now that it was almost over it all felt like a blur. There was a cluster of reporters standing nearby, denoted by their microphones and cameramen. They barely spared Armin a glance, dismissing him as unimportant as he hurried down the walkway and out into the lot.

Irwin’s rental car was parked near another exit, close enough that he could make a run for it if he had to. He’d picked it up this morning in an effort to disguise his movements, and it seemed to have worked. Nobody was watching the car as he approached, pressing the button on the keychain to unlock the doors.

When he heard the rapid slapping of feet against the pavement behind him he spun around, fearing a verbal assault by some nosy reporter. Instead what he was Petra racing toward him, barefoot with her pumps clutched under her arm so she’d be able to run. “Armin,” she gasped as she reached him, latching onto his arm and keeling forward to catch her breath. “Holy crap. Oh gosh.”

“Petra, what’s wrong?” he asked, bewildered by her breathless state.

“It’s…they’re back, already. Jesus, not even an hour.”

“Back? Who…? The _jury_?”

She nodded, gulping air, “Yeah. Didn’t take them long, huh? Hanji called Levi, said Irwin was still with her, so he told me to come get you since your phone was off. Ugh, chivalry must really be dead. Little bastard, making me run around barefoot in the cold.”

Armin snorted, taking her hand to help her balance while she slipped her shoes back on. “You didn’t have to run. I wouldn’t have gone anywhere without Irwin.”

“Well, it’s not like they’re gonna wait for us to be there before they read the verdict! Come on, let’s go get this over with, then we can bully them into taking us on a double date. I wanna eat like a whole steak.” Armin snickered as she pulled on his hand, leading him back toward the courthouse, hiding the uneasy wash of suspicion this news brought with it. Should he be relieved or worried that the jury had made their decision so quickly?

There was a crowd at the doors, people eagerly gathered to retake their seats. Some must have left already, but the room was still mostly packed. This time Armin and Petra sat together, taking an aisle seat as they watched the jury file back in through a door near the other end of the room. He saw Irwin and Levi back at their table, Hanji pacing in front of them with a strangely disconcerted look on her face. Her discomfiture made something in his stomach jump, but he didn’t get a chance to dwell on it.

Judge Rose emerged from her chambers, frowning as she made her way back up to her podium. A quick glance over at the prosecutors’ table told him nothing. Reiss was still glowering at Hanji, and Dawk was merely watching silently, following the movements of the jurors as they resumed their positions. The bailiff belatedly commanded the audience to rise, but the judge waved her hand at him, and he quickly amended the order.

“Why does everyone seem so flustered?” Armin asked warily, but before Petra could respond, Judge Rose called for silence.

“Foreman,” she called out, “have you reached a decision?” One of the jurors stood, nervously clutching a sheet of paper to his chest.

“Y-yes, we have, your honor,” he said, clearing his throat as he glanced down at the paper, then toward the prosecution, of all things. Again, Armin felt a distinct sense of foreboding, but there was no time to analyze it, to wonder why.

“Please inform the court of your decision, Mr. Foreman,” Rose prompted, narrowing her eyes as he jumped.

“Ah, yes. Of course,” he visibly swallowed, and raised the paper to read off the judgment. Armin’s stomach twisted, knotting back up until it felt like his insides were full of broken glass. “For the defendant, Levi Rivaille, we have decided to, ah, indict on all counts.” Armin felt rather than heard Petra gasp beside him, felt her go completely stiff as her hand clutched his arm with bruising force, “And for the defendant, Irwin Smith, w-we have also chosen to indict on all counts. T-that is all, your honor.”

For a long moment there was silence. In Armin’s head it stretched for eons, and then Judge Rose was calling for the bailiff with a dark look on her face, asking him to take the defendants into custody, and Dawk and Reiss were grinning triumphantly, greasy smiles burning against his eyes as the blood pounded in his ears, and then everything came to a grinding halt as somebody shouted, loosing a resounding, “No!”

He realized the objection had come from him a moment later when he saw Irwin twisting around in his seat, expression almost pleading, almost begging Armin not to, but he couldn’t help it. He was on his feet, though he didn’t remember standing up. On his feet and shaking, and the words burst out of his mouth of their own volition as his feet carried him toward the front of the room. “You can’t,” he said, voice shaking and unnaturally loud in his ears. “You _can’t_.”

The bailiff appeared, blocking him from pushing through the swinging door, blocking him from Irwin, but he ignored the man, looking past him toward the judge. “Young man, you will please be seated,” she said, mouth pinched with disapproval.

“I—,” he glanced toward Irwin, and thickened his resolve, swallowing hard as he barreled forward, “You can’t indict them. It’s a lie, all of it. All the evidence, everything that witness said.”

The judge glanced away from him, and he could have sworn she was looking toward Hanji, and that he saw the lawyer nod at her out of the corner of his eye. “And how do you know this?” she asked him.

“B-because those dates, he wasn’t meeting with her, h-he was with me.” Silence rang in his ears again, and he risked another glance at Irwin, worried that he would see anger on his face, but all he saw there was a kind of sadness that made his heart twist painfully.

“With you? Under what circumstances?” the judge prompted.

“He was with me,” Armin said, voice dropping until he was almost whispering, “He was with me because I’m his boyfriend.” There was another moment of silence, and he saw Reiss sputtering, and Dawk glaring at him murderously, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, not the increasing whispers, or the snapping whirs of cameras.

“Bailiff, please escort this young man to my chambers. Silence! Silence please! Put down those cameras, or I’ll have them confiscated!”

Armin allowed himself to be taken by the arm and led toward the doorway beside the podium. He felt oddly numb as the bailiff guided him through the door, and firmly told him to take a seat in front of a large desk. The chamber was just as plainly decorated as the courtroom, but he found he couldn’t really focus on the room around him. There was something going out outside the door, hurried talking, and loud voices, the diminishing noise of a crowd. He didn’t know how long he sat there, but as each minute ticked by he slowly began to feel a nettling sense of panic.

_No_ , he thought. He didn’t care what happened now, as long as Irwin would be safe. No matter what the older man thought, Armin had had to do it. There really hadn’t been any other choice. What was he supposed to have done? Sit there and let them take his boyfriend away to prison? There was a pain in his lower lip, and he realized he was biting down on it nearly hard enough to draw blood. Calm down, he told himself. They would believe him. They would have to believe him. Right?

The door opened behind him, and he sat bolt upright in his chair as the judge swept past him, muttering under her breath as she took her seat behind the desk. When she was situated, she leveled a look at him that made him feel like an insect underneath a magnifying glass. “Well,” she said after a long, discomfiting moment, “You certainly caused quite the scene out there, young man.”

“I had to.”

“I’m sure you did,” she agreed, tone brusque. The door creaked again and he heard the growling voice of Reiss could be heard, along with the smug murmuring of Hanji. Judge Rose leaned to the side, one eyebrow cocked, and both voices fell silent. For a moment, anyway.

“Your Honor, I want you to know how incredibly—,”

“I’ve heard your input, Reiss,” she said, forestalling him with a raised hand and a dry inflection, “Please keep your opinion to yourself for once. Now, you must tell me the truth, Armin, is it?” Armin nodded, and she continued, “You say you are engaged in a relationship of a romantic nature with Mr. Smith, and that on many of the days indicated in the prosecutions’ evidence were days that he was with you. Correct?”

“Yes,” he said, voice wavering. She narrowed her eyes at him, then seemed to glance over his head. A disgusted noise emanated from Reiss, and he realized that she must have been conferring silently with Hanji.

“You would swear to this, under oath?” the judge asked, returning her gaze to him.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, this time managing to keep his tone even, though his heart was pounding in his throat.

“Very well,” she said, “I believe that that can wait for another day. Counselor Zoe will prepare the affidavits, and as far as this court is concerned, there is no case here.” Reiss made an indignant noise somewhere behind him, and he could feel a hand gripping his shoulder, and Hanji’s voice in his ear as the judge stood and swept out of the room. He couldn’t hear much of anything over the blood ringing in his ears, his relief so acute that he thought he might faint. When he was sure the room was empty, he slumped forward, burying his face in his hands and fighting back a sudden wave of emotion.

He didn’t hear the door opening again, didn’t realize Irwin was in the room until he heard the older man speak his name. “Armin,” he said, his voice sending a jolt through the blond. He jumped to his feet, turning determinedly to face his boyfriend. The businessman looked so tired, so weighted down by everything, and Armin felt a strange surge of guilt that he had to fight down.

“I’m not sorry,” he said, meeting Irwin’s doleful gaze unflinchingly, “I had to do it.”

“I know,” Irwin said, stopping the speech Armin had been mentally prepared to give. “I know.” He reached out, and Armin felt as though he was being drawn forward. He stepped into Irwin’s arms, and sagged against him.

“You’re not angry,” he said, a statement rather than a question.

“No. I’m just worried,” Irwin murmured, hands smoothing up and down Armin’s back. “I wish this hadn’t happened.”

“But it’s over now,” the younger man said, hope tinging his voice. Irwin didn’t answer that. Instead, he pulled back, squeezing Armin’s shoulders and bending forward to kiss his forehead.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, brushing a thumb against Armin’s chin. “I think if I never see another courtroom again, it’ll be too soon.” He took Armin’s hand, giving it a squeeze and pulling him toward the door. They left the courthouse that way, past flashing cameras and shouting crowds, but all the younger man could see was Irwin, walking free.

X

“I’ll email those files to you once I have them ready. Tomorrow, at the latest.”

“Thank you, Hanji,” Irwin said distractedly as he entered the penthouse.

“Just doing my job, boss,” she said, her usual cheerfulness doubled after her show of legal prowess several days beforehand. He could still scarcely believe less than a week had gone by since then; there had been a whirlwind of activity since, with several threats of suits and countersuits from the board of directors who were now crying foul. Irwin would be dealing with them all in due time—for now, he had more important matters to attend to.

He ended his call with Hanji, and stepped into the living room where he’d seen the light from the television flashing from the front hallway. Just as he’d suspected, Armin sat perched on the couch, Romulus wedged in beside him, watching yet another news broadcast play out across the screen.

“I thought I said I didn’t want you watching that trash,” Irwin said as he crossed the room. Armin turned to glance at him and scoffed.

“And I told you, you can’t tell me what to do.” There wasn’t any real venom in the words, just resignation. They were both silent, Irwin standing to the side and watching some reporter on screen deliver their opinion on the matter of the trial. “I didn’t think it would be this bad,” Armin said after a moment, sounding almost amused. Irwin saw the look on his face, though, and wasn’t fooled. He strode forward and pressed the power button on the television. When he turned back, Armin was leaning against the dog, idly stroking a hand along Romulus’ flank.

Without a word, he joined the younger man on the sofa, and Armin shifted to lean against him, ignoring the mastiff’s whine of resentment. “You were right,” he said, “about the media blowing things out of proportion. And people _believe_ what they’re saying about me. Even people I _know_. I had to delete my Facebook,” he muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Irwin said, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.

“I’m not,” the younger man told him. “I’d do it again. I don’t care what anybody says.” Irwin felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and turned Armin’s face up to his own.

“I know you don’t,” he said. He bent to press a brief kiss to the younger man’s lips, and felt him frowning. “What?”

“I just don’t know what I’m going to do about work. Ymir called to yell at me for all the reporters that have been calling her. And I can’t even go to my apartment without some asshole shoving a microphone in my face.” He groaned, and buried his face in Irwin’s neck.

“You can always stay here,” the older man said consolingly. “You hardly ever go home as it is.”

“But I can’t just mooch off of you,” Armin huffed in protest.

“Says who?”

“I dunno, basically everybody? I’m a gold-digging little homo, or haven’t you been watching the news?”

“I thought you didn’t care what other people said?” Irwin teased, meeting Armin’s glare with a gentle smile. “We’ll think of something,” he assured the younger man, “The media will find someone else to rip to shreds eventually, and everyone will forget all about us. Until then, you’re just going to have to suffer my affections.”

Armin sighed resignedly, and nodded. “Alright,” he said, “But that doesn’t mean you’re allowed to buy me any embarrassingly expensive gifts. And…there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.” He finished with a solemn tone, sitting up straight so that he could look Irwin in the eye.

“What would that be?” the older man asked worriedly as Armin slipped a hand into one of his own.

“It’s…It’ just that, if we’re going to be together, after everything that’s happened, I don’t think we should…I don’t want us to lie to each other anymore, Irwin.”

“Lie to each other?” Irwin repeated, startled.

“Yes, and don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, because that’s _exactly_ what I’m talking about. I don’t mean like how we tease and try to outsmart each other. I mean _really_ lying. Like, being manipulative, like you trying to keep me from testifying no matter what, and me not telling you how I really feel about things, to get you to do what I want. That’s what ruined my last relationship, and I don’t…I don’t want that to happen to us.” By that point he was squeezing Irwin’s hand, eyes almost desperate and pleading. “I want us to be honest about the important things, okay? I want it to be okay for us to call each other on our bullshit.”

“Okay,” Irwin agreed softly, reaching up with his free hand to brush the hair back from Armin’s eyes. “For you, I’ll do anything.” Armin sighed, seeming to deflate a little as he lifted Irwin’s hand and kissed his palm.

“And I’d do anything for you, but you already know that,” he said, and Irwin felt the little puff of laughter against his hand.

“And I’m very grateful for that,” Irwin said, “Speaking of which, I did get you something on the way home.”

“What?” Armin said, frowning as the older man rose from the sofa and headed back toward the hallway. “Irwin, you didn’t have to—,”

“No arguments,” Irwin called back over his shoulder. He picked up the bag from where he’d left it next to his briefcase, and returned to the sofa, where Armin was waiting for him with an amusingly apprehensive look on his face.

“Oh God, it’s not a ruby or something, is it?” the blond grimaced as Irwin sat back down and handed him the small, brown paper bag.

“Would I carry a ruby around the city in a shopping bag?” Irwin scoffed.

“I don’t—what is this?” Armin said, upending the contents of the bag into his lap. “It’s…Sour Patch Kids?” he asked, looking up from the plastic yellow package at Irwin, obviously perplexed.

“You said they were your favorite. I know it’s not much, but we missed Valentine’s Day, and with all the reporters hounding me I couldn’t exactly go out and—are you crying?”

“No,” Armin sniffed, wiping hurriedly at his eyes, “ _You’re_ crying. I can’t…You make me so…Ugh, I don’t even _like_ Valentine’s Day, you thoughtful asshole.”

“You’re welcome,” Irwin chuckled, wrapping his arms around the younger man and pulling him up into his lap.

“I didn’t get you anything,” Armin muttered into his throat, “I didn’t even think to.”

“It’s fine,” Irwin assured him.

“No it’s not,” the younger man argued, “After everything, you still thought to do something for me, and I—,”

“And you kept me from having to spend the next several months and possibly _years_ in prison. I can’t ever pay you back for that, Armin, no matter what I do.”

He could almost _feel_ Armin ramping up another counterpoint, felt him sigh and say, “I did that because I love you, not for some gimmicky holiday.” A second passed, then another, and then Armin was sitting bolt upright in his lap, flushed red from the roots of his hair to his collarbone as he sputtered, “I mean—I meant—Oh my God. I can’t believe…I wanted to say it, but…I’m so awkward, oh God, Irwin,” he groaned and buried his face against the older man’s shoulder.

They were quiet again for a long moment, before Irwin finally said, “So, you love me, do you?”

Armin whimpered, and bit out, “Not if you’re going to tease me about it.”

“I would never,” Irwin said, “And since we’re being honest with each other,” he waited for Armin to lift his head and look him in the eye, the younger man red-faced but earnest, knowing what he was about to hear but still needing to hear it. “I love you, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wish AO3 had a section for original fiction on account of how much fictionpress sucks. Also, I made a tumblr for writing stuff since my personal account is full to the brim with nonsense. It’s [attackontartan](http://attackontartan.tumblr.com/). You can ask me stuff and whatever. There’s also a vague chance that I’ll do prompts if they are sent to me. 
> 
> I hope all the legal stuff wasn’t too boring for you all to read, especially after having to wait for me for so long. Hopefully it won’t be too long until the next update, but I have an ass-rash of a quarter coming up in school, so bear with me my sweet flamingos. (the flamingo is the most beloved of birds, it’s a fact)

**Author's Note:**

> So, I don’t have the next part written like usual due to the reasons listed above. Hopefully I’ll get to it soon since I don’t have a job anymore and whatnot. In the meantime you can stew in the anxiety of my completely necessary cliffhanger, while I’ll be stewing in the anxiety of what a cornball I am. I also don't know how many chapters this is going to be. Most likely longer than two. 
> 
> It took me twenty minutes to think up that line about the bronze dick, I almost gave up on it. That’s the part of this that I’m most proud of.


End file.
